ix415@sdcc6.UUCP (Rick Frey) (08/17/85)
Forgive me if I'm being completely out of it, but I've looked over a decent amount of the most recent postings on freewill (mainly by Rich but by reading those I can see everyone else's) and I'm interested to hear what you feel defines or determines behavior. If you've stated your theory before then this can be a chance for a re-stating of your goals and purpose in this discussion and if not, I'd like to see what you feel is a powerful enough force to create this illusion of free will while in actuality determing our behavior such that free will is an illusion. One thing I'd also like to say is that all of your arguing about things being determined by context and environment exclude one consideration, that just because something is likely to be caused by something else, doesn't mean that it is. Another statement I'd like to point out is that just because something is in a position to effect something else doesn't mean that it does. The clearest example of this can be seen in church history. Many religious historians will argue that cultures before the Hebrews had religious structures that incorporated many of the ideas that became the Judeao/Christian ethic and many of the actual stories found in the Bible (i.e. the flood account). But just because the Babylonians have a flood story too doesn't mean that the Biblical one isn't true or isn't derived independently. It might be easy to see a chain of events that would explain many of the similarities between Biblical mythology and other religious mythology but what does that mean? Before you jump all over that let me say that I'm not arguing for someone who can see a rock dropped off a building a thousand times, have it be clocked and the acceleration determined and then say, "well it might not always be 32 ft/sec sqd." But when you see this intrinsic logic that Christ would have to call his believers to live by faith (you say because there's no reality to belive in) why couldn't it be because that's the way God chose to test a group of people with the minds that He gave us that seem to continually debate around the issue of faith vs. facts. If you look hard enough, you'll notice lots of nice coincedences like that. Major areas of human concern God seems to have something to say about not only how to deal with them but often times why they're there and what purpose they serve. You'll scream that any moron with a little insight could create a religious structure (no comments on those that have) but the Bible is amazing when you look at it from the inside. Often times it's scary to think of how well it ties together. It covers itself beautifully. Everytime you point out a problem or a contradiction it falls back on "Man through wisdom knoweth not God" or "How far above your ways are My ways sayeth the Lord" or someother catch all phrase that more often than not (look around today and see how well it's done) defends itself. And it's even scarier when you think about how well it actually jibes with recorded history, textual criticism and all sorts of other tests that sceptics like to put it through. But what's even more amazing is that with all the attacks through all the years of human existence, we can't seem to get rid of this God idea. You can argue that it still exists only because people need it, but just like with all these other issues, you're idea could be true but there's just this lingering possibility that we think about and try to reconcile ourselves to this God not out of some self created need but because of the way God created us, needing to have a relationship with Himself to be complete. "From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God." Sounds like a circle to me. Rick Frey (..ihnp4!sdcsvax!sdcc6!ix415)