25 Oct 2011, 11:19 pm
Tadzio wrote:
Predestination is absolute, very few are destined to know, most are destined for ignorance.
Evidence, please?
Predestination implies a meta-authority that determines the actions of every particle of matter, every erg of energy, and every iota of thought throughout the universe from the Big Bang to the Big Crunch. Predestination implies that there can be no sin, since the meta-authority would have already dictated every theft, every murder, every idol-worship, and every other broken commandment, and in doing so, taken away any freedom for the "sinner" to do anything but commit the "sin".
If there is no sin, then there is no morality.
Without morality, there is no basis for secular law.
Predestination is nothing more than an excuse for self-righteous (and usually self-appointed) religious authorities to absolve themselves of the most heinous of crimes against those who look up to them and trust them - "It was God's will that I marry those underage girls and father their children!"
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26 Oct 2011, 12:17 am
Fnord wrote:
Tadzio wrote:
Predestination is absolute, very few are destined to know, most are destined for ignorance.
Evidence, please?
Predestination implies a meta-authority that determines the actions of every particle of matter, every erg of energy, and every iota of thought throughout the universe from the Big Bang to the Big Crunch. Predestination implies that there can be no sin, since the meta-authority would have already dictated every theft, every murder, every idol-worship, and every other broken commandment, and in doing so, taken away any freedom for the "sinner" to do anything but commit the "sin".
If there is no sin, then there is no morality.
Without morality, there is no basis for secular law.
Predestination is nothing more than an excuse for self-righteous (and usually self-appointed) religious authorities to absolve themselves of the most heinous of crimes against those who look up to them and trust them - "It was God's will that I marry those underage girls and father their children!"
The answers are also in the digits of the power and the factor of Euler's identity.
Destiny dictates whether or not you can find your own experienced sequence.
Destiny directs me not to direct you to your location in the sequence, and it is all
beyond freedom and dignity. This does not make flowers ugly, and Time is not the
only dimension.
Tadzio
26 Oct 2011, 1:32 am
well, the turn this conversation has taken necessitates that we discuss the notion of "free will".
as i am sure you will be aware, einstein, writing in "my credo" and following on the thoughts of schopenhauer, was not of the belief that free will exists. see here:
http://www.einstein-website.de/z_biography/credo.html
einstein wrote:
I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper.
schopenhauer elucidated this idea in his paper "on the freedom of the will" which unfortunately does not seem to be available to read online, however the wikipedia page here does very roughly summarise the ideas contained therein:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Freedom_of_the_Will
john gray has recently taken schopenhauer's ideas and attempted to widen the discussion by introducing other sources and suggesting that humans are far more akin to the rest of the animal world than we like to think, and presents a well researched, and at least very interesting, counter argument to the general consensus on the notion of free will in his book "straw dogs".
john gray wrote:
“We think our actions express our decisions. But in nearly all of our life, willing decides nothing. We cannot wake up or fall asleep, remember or forget our dreams, summon or banish our thoughts, by deciding to do so. When we greet someone on the street we just act, and there is no actor standing behind what we do. Our acts are end points in long sequences of unconscious responses. They arise from a structure of habits and skills that is almost infinitely complicated. Most of our life in enacted without conscious awareness. Nor can it be made conscious. No degree of self-awareness can make us self-transparent.”
the question is, therefore, what ramifications has this line of reasoning for the discussion at hand, given the consensus appears to be moving towards the idea that reality is formed by the choices that humans make?
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?Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.?
Adam Smith
26 Oct 2011, 12:11 pm
I subscribe to a view that the concept of "destiny" is an obsolete cultural relic, left over from a time when class mobility was practically impossible.
You were born into your place in society, and your birth dictated the course of your life, be it King, landowner or serf. A cultural view that, "all is as God has ordained it to be," is very useful for keeping peace and good order. The antithesis, of course, is equally fictitious. Not every natural born citizen of the United States is able to grow up to be President. But it's a nice fiction that is very useful for keeping peace and good order.
The truth lies somewhere in between. There are élites, thus it ever has been and thus it ever will be. But within the confines of family, clan and tribe we can still exercise a wider degree of self-determination that our feudal forebears.
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--James
26 Oct 2011, 4:04 pm
visagrunt wrote:
I subscribe to a view that the concept of "destiny" is an obsolete cultural relic, left over from a time when class mobility was practically impossible.
You were born into your place in society, and your birth dictated the course of your life, be it King, landowner or serf. A cultural view that, "all is as God has ordained it to be," is very useful for keeping peace and good order. The antithesis, of course, is equally fictitious. Not every natural born citizen of the United States is able to grow up to be President. But it's a nice fiction that is very useful for keeping peace and good order.
The truth lies somewhere in between. There are élites, thus it ever has been and thus it ever will be. But within the confines of family, clan and tribe we can still exercise a wider degree of self-determination that our feudal forebears.
You were born into your place in society, and your birth dictated the course of your life, be it King, landowner or serf. A cultural view that, "all is as God has ordained it to be," is very useful for keeping peace and good order. The antithesis, of course, is equally fictitious. Not every natural born citizen of the United States is able to grow up to be President. But it's a nice fiction that is very useful for keeping peace and good order.
The truth lies somewhere in between. There are élites, thus it ever has been and thus it ever will be. But within the confines of family, clan and tribe we can still exercise a wider degree of self-determination that our feudal forebears.
the problem is that for most class mobility is still, if not impossible, highly improbable.
_________________
?Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.?
Adam Smith
