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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

[Orange Wizard]

I just found this in 1 Samuel 6:6

"Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When Israel's god dealt harshly with them, did they not send the Israelites out so they could go on their way?"

Context: The Ark of the Covenant has been captured by the Philistines, and they don't know what to do with it. Their priests and diviners are telling them to send it back to Israel so they don't get plagued like what happened to Egypt.
God himself is not directly involved at all. No free will is implied. The Philistine priests etc. are trying to convince their friends that provoking the Lord of Israel is a Bad Idea.

[penguinofhonor]

Are you saying this verse contradicts the verse about God hardening the pharaoh's heart?

[origamiscienceguy]

no. I was contemplating the possibility that it was an ambiguous translation. Although what Orange said is probably right.

[Micro102]

He's God, he can do whatever he wants. He gave us free will so he could love us. It's hard to love a robot.

If I were an all knowing god, humans would be nothing but robots I designed. I would know what every single one of their actions would be before I even built them.

The only reason we don't love robots is because we haven't built one who's intelligence has surpassed our ability to comprehend it yet.

[origamiscienceguy]

Forget the robot part. I just now realized how bad of an analogy that was for this thread. 

Think of chairs instead.

 

[Graknorke]

People could probably love a chair if you drew a face on it.
People can get attached to anything.

[Frumple]

I'd probably argue it's easier to love a well designed chair than it is to love many human beings. Gods know I've gotten along better with some chairs I've had than I do with most of the people in the surrounding township.

It's damned easy to love a chair -- they have pretty much nothing but positive qualities, and their only substantial downside is degeneration over time and a degree of uncertainty (downsides which humans have at least as much). They aid and support you, often longer than most of your human relationships will, and have a literally complete lack of malice, selfishness, or hate. They may lack the depth of human interaction, but to say they are difficult to love? No. Not even remotely.

[Ghazkull]

I think the entire thing was once treated in Paradise Lost by Milton.

I don't recall the exact words but the idea was roughly thus:

God is almighty. He can create whatever the fuck he wants. But the problem is with creating automatons (aka angels here) kinda sucks because they lack free will. They love him because he made them this way that they have to love him no matter if they want to or not. Because they can't not want to. (that already sounds so grammatically wrong)

Anyway. He thus created humans with free will. He creates them with free will so that they can choose not to love him. The idea being behind it that man would choose to love god for himself not because he is an almighty creator or can give them boons but love him for his own sake.

I guess that makes the almighty god a pretty lone guy who just wants to be loved, but not by something which loves him because he said so but by something that chooses to love him.

The fact that he is then angry that those who can choose then choose not to do so, however is an entire different keg.

[Descan]

Yeah.

Also, basically, God is an absentee father. Only worse, because at least you can be reasonably certain your dad at least existed at one point, even if you never saw him. But he still wants you to love him, and would be really angry if you didn't.

He's basically a deadbeat dad.

[BFEL]

Yeah.

Also, basically, God is an absentee father. Only worse, because at least you can be reasonably certain your dad at least existed at one point, even if you never saw him. But he still wants you to love him, and would be really angry if you didn't.

He's basically a deadbeat dad.

Actually, if you believe the bible, God is Casey Anthony.
Oh, the humans are acting up again and MEDAMMIT I'LL JUST DROWN THE FUCKERS

[scrdest]

Yeah.

Also, basically, God is an absentee father. Only worse, because at least you can be reasonably certain your dad at least existed at one point, even if you never saw him. But he still wants you to love him, and would be really angry if you didn't.

He's basically a deadbeat dad.

Actually, if you believe the bible, God is Casey Anthony.
Oh, the humans are acting up again and MEDAMMIT I'LL JUST DROWN THE FUCKERS

That would mean that, logically, Casey Anthony is therefore God.

WHERE IS YOUR GO- oh wait, nevermind.

[Orange Wizard]

But that all hinges on us having free will in the first place.

[lemon10]

Lemon, I guess? Most often I've heard the free will argument more along the lines of "God doesn't/can't interfere in free will, that's why he can't [just show us he exists by appearing individually to every person]/[make everyone on Earth believe in him]/[make sure his book is translated correctly/written correctly]/[make sure everyone understands it correctly]/[etc]"

Which Pharoah being fucked with shows that yeah, no, he could do that, hell I even tossed in a few examples of ways he can "interfere with free will" without going all mind-probey.

In my opinion, it shows that free will only exists because god chooses to allow it to exist, not that it doesn't actually exist.

Not that I actually believe that free will is consistent with an omniscient god, but I don't think this particular action of his is a good argument against it.

[Orange Wizard]

Well, if anything, it shows God doesn't respect/value free will; considers it something that can be manipulated as a means to an end.

[lemon10]

Its pretty clear in the old testament that god doesn't value/respect anyone but the Jews at all, and he has no problem at all killing tens of thousands of them for unintentional and accidental insults and slights.

But the fact that he only mind controls someone once ever compared to all the times he simply kills people through plague/smiting/famine implies that he is pretty reluctant to do so.