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Freewill To Debate

I have noticed that most theist that confront me about my beliefs tend to argue that god gave us freewil. I dont think this is a solid arguement because I dont think there is freewill. I think the freewill arguement is weak for many reasons such as

1) It contradicts the term omnipotent.

2) Its questionable as to when would we be given this freewil.
If if is before birth why would a baby choose to be deformed or die at birth? If it was after birth why would people have no choice against a social Identity?

3) God does not seem to have freewill himself. He has to be present all the time with no sleep. He has to know everything. What if god wants a vacation?

I want to know if there are atheist who think mankind has freewill.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Nate on September 17, 2009 at 7:49am

He believes that we have freewill in degrees and dismisses the traditional concept that free will is free of causation.

I believe that this may be what's referred to as soft determinism.

Permalink Reply by Donald R Barbera on October 5, 2009 at 4:21pm

Freewill contradicts omnipotence. God either knows or doesn't--PERIOD!

Don

Permalink Reply by Dave Myers on October 23, 2009 at 12:54pm

I just happened to wonder on-to this 'conversation' , and I've been reading through-it a bit ..... you 'have' some in-sight ,and , it's obvious that I'm reading words from individuals who have done 'some' , if not 'most' , of their 'home-work' .... the only comment that I would care to add to your opinions , would be on the subject of 'memory' , and "love" , which IS , ironically , simply a "collection" OF memories ..... nothing more , nothing less , really ....

AND , our 'memories' , are based on our associations , which of course , are accessed via varied processes , according to the nature of that , which is being , 'stimulated' ...

Permalink Reply by RealType on October 24, 2009 at 2:18am

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Permalink Reply by Norman Davis on October 26, 2009 at 5:30pm

Hate to sound like a politician but 'FREE WILL" is a relative term. Is a such thing as total free will , of course not because we would have anarchy, especially within the context of a civilzed society. What your theist friends call free will, i call choice. Given their base of knowledge and other social variavles, they choose to believe in god and the rest of us choose not to believe. When your theist freinds say god gave us free will, you should respond .. what about the 40 million africans who died in the middle passage and the others who arrived safely only to be made laves..did god give them free will ;or the thousands who were hung during the jim crow era ..did he give them free will.. if he did i am sure they would have chosen different fates for themselves

Permalink Reply by Dave Myers on November 1, 2009 at 8:32am

I agree with that reasoning , in that , the articulation of 'the spoken word' , is simply , an individual , and the 'gestalt' (If you will allow me to 'use' that term), of the individuals collective cognition , forming an 'understanding/awareness' ... and 'this' individual , then placing words , (which are , 'themselves' , a collection of 'symbols' , subjectively formed , having an unique meaning to 'the one' , whom employs them .... ) together , in such a way , as to 'communicate' ;

..... which , of course , is then recieved by ..... and the process is repeated ... ergo , the over-used , but , very un-fortunately needed-to-be-taken-account-for , 'wriggle-room' needed to 'allow' for semantical variance ...