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A Plea for Understanding

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  • #91
    Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
    I do not think so. You have to follow the original series of posts. The problem is a little more fundamental in seer's view that the Mechanistic biological determinism of evolution science cannot explain the possibility of Free Will, therefore . . . He may be apparently shifting his argument (a little?) from his original position, but I doubt it.
    No, I did not shift anything. And yes I do maintain that if materialism is correct, free will is not possible. Some scientists do agree, others don't. But for those who don't I would like to see an argument as to how freedom of the will could be even theoretically possible with materialism.
    Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

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    • #92
      Originally posted by seer View Post
      No, I did not shift anything. And yes I do maintain that if materialism is correct, free will is not possible. Some scientists do agree, others don't. But for those who don't I would like to see an argument as to how freedom of the will could be even theoretically possible with materialism.
      …as do several significant branches of Christianity and for the same basic reason, namely the idea that every event is necessitated by antecedent events together with the laws of nature and/or an omniscient God.
      “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

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      • #93
        Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
        ...seer's view that the Mechanistic biological determinism of evolution science cannot explain the possibility of Free Will...
        @seer: One authentic Christian viewpoint is that God could have/did set the mechanistic biological determinism of evolution in motion precisely in order to achieve people with free will -- see 'Shadow to Light' blog here, also several of the following half-dozen entries -- so mechanistic determinism is not necessarily a valid objection to free will (or to a creator God.)

        Originally posted by seer View Post
        ...yes I do maintain that if materialism is correct, free will is not possible. Some scientists do agree, others don't. But for those who don't I would like to see an argument as to how freedom of the will could be even theoretically possible with materialism.
        Edward Feser is prominent among those who agree with you that any consistent materialism is an eliminative materialism, is Scientism, and denies free will. See his ten-blog scathing comments on Alex Rosenberg's "The Atheist's Guide to Reality", the parts of which are conveniently linked to from Feser's roundup (and here for links to his comments on Scientism in general.) I agree with Feser (and you) on this, but would point out that in my admittedly few probings of atheists on TWEB the atheists have (nearly always) demonstrated they have views rather nearer to that of the moderate everyman than to those of Rosenberg type eliminative materialist extremists.
        Last edited by David Hayward; 02-01-2014, 03:12 AM.

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        • #94
          Originally posted by David Hayward View Post
          I agree with Feser (and you) on this, but would point out that in my admittedly few probings of atheists on TWEB the atheists have (nearly always) demonstrated they have views rather nearer to that of the moderate everyman than to those of Rosenberg type eliminative materialist extremists.
          So we agree, my point, having been in this debate before - I have never seen, logically, how significant human freedom could be possible if materialism is correct. I recently read Thomas Nagel "Mind and Cosmos" - at least twice, he kept coming up to the point of some form of interactive dualism, but never would actually embrace it. I believe some type of dualism would be necessary for genuine human freedom. If not it is turtles all the way down.
          Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

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          • #95
            Could someone please tell me how to quote individual pieces of a post? I've been trying for about 20 minutes now to no avail.

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            • #96
              Quote tags come in pairs of [quote] and [ /quote] and you need to put them at the beginning and end of what you want to quote. For instance:

              [quote]I've been trying for about 20 minutes now to no avail.[ /quote]

              If I removed the space before the "/" in the second quote tag, then it would appear like this:

              I've been trying for about 20 minutes now to no avail.
              If you want to give the name of the person you are quoting, then make the first quote tag look like [quote=Shaney777]

              Originally posted by Shaney777
              I've been trying for about 20 minutes now to no avail.
              Last edited by Soyeong; 02-06-2014, 01:24 PM.
              "Faith is nothing less than the will to keep one's mind fixed precisely on what reason has discovered to it." - Edward Feser

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              • #97
                Originally posted by 37818 View Post
                God cannot be wrong.
                I'll keep that in mind if he ever says anything to me. But as long as all I hear is people talking about him, I'm going to have my doubts.

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