The Question of Free Will and Christianity (ritual, tradition, soul)

[BalanceFx]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

This goes to where I said I've been going about this all wrong and Scarlett Wampus brought it to my attention. I don't think the brain decides anything. "Freedom" is where the unconditioned breaks through the conditioned and makes the decision for us, that is, for the brain. The brain is, indeed, a mechanism.

I'm still feeling my way through this stuff.

Depends on what the unconditioned is or if the unconditioned exists. Everything we know, feel, say and do is a product of what we have learned and ultimately is controlled by the way or brain interprets and decides events. We are aware of actions only after we hve done them. But lets say you begin planning something. I am going to go work in the garden today.

Its hot out, you do not want to go, you dont think you will finish what you want to in the time you have etc etc... You are rationalizing with yourself. Waging your own internal war as to when you will work in the garden. Delaying, procrastinating.

Instead of that you grab your tools and goto the garden and begin weeding. You give up procrastination and just begin working.

Do you have free will?

It is a deep subject to be sure which is why I perosnally debate it. We know we are easily condtioned folk. If someone were to come over and say hey I feel like working in your garden then you no longer rationilze anything... if someone is coming to help you and to work in your garden then sure enough you will also be working in your garden. Yet there is then conditioning... I wouldn't say unconiditioned responses but environment perhaps. If I see someone walking in the rain with a gas can and stop to drive them both to the gas station and then back to their car I have just interrupted whatever conditioned response they had.

There is also hypnotism which some people are immune to and others highly susceptible and arguments that everyone is immune or that everyone is highly susceptible. It goes into getting inside a persons natural routine and speaking a command that bypasses the filter layer and commands the machine beneath.

Right... so what is this filter layer? Obviously consciousness must reside there... How does it work? Is it a reward penalty system? Does it pick through the machine layer and draw conclusions... Is it capable of commanding the machine layer and if so how does it determine what it is to do. It by definition must also be a machine.

On and on it goes.

[Rolling_Stone]

Interesting stuff, that's for sure.

The human mind is seated in the physical but transcends it. Experiments indicate that just thinking about something can reconfigure the brain. Brain scans show that when people are divided into three groups and put into a room with a piano over a period of several days, the brains of the group told to think about practicing hard on the piano changed almost as much as the group that actually practiced, while the group that was instructed to do nothing showed no change at all. (We can argue, then, that if the brain of a homosexual is different than that of a heterosexual, it is the thinking that alters it.) But only the preeminence of will makes such experiments possible.

The brain doesn't decide anything. Mind rests gently upon the electrochemical mechanism below and delicately touches energy systems above. We are never completely conscious of either; therefore all our works are in-between these two forces, and it's about the only thing will can act on.

[roli]

Originally Posted by ericoh2

Under the Christian belief system total free will is not possible. Free will states that an individual has the ability to make a decision without being controlled or programmed in any way. First of all we have to identify what the term "self" or "individual" is referring to. For the most part in the Christian faith the indivual is thought to be a combination of the soul, genetics and enviromental influence. They believe the soul is given to you after conception by God and you receive your DNA layout from your parents. If this were true than these two factors are completly out of your hands and are decided by factors that you could not control. Even the experiences that you have are decided by these factors. If you were born 500 years ago you would probably be a completly different person simply because of your enviroment.
This means that in the traditional Christian faith there is no real purpose for existence. If you are "good" you were made to be "good", if your are not then you were not made to be. Either way their wouldn't be a point for existence. The only way true free will is possible is if you are one with the eternal. Simply a point of consciousness within the infinite ocean of existence.

I hope to get some good replies, have a great day.

Your philosophy and particular perspective should by no means be limited to Christianity. It is across the board in every area of life.

Who really is free under the confines and boundaries of law, standards, codes of ethics etc. in any society.
We have the free will and power to choose to live as we please, but only within certain perimeters, in essence ,does that mean we have no free will outside those perimeters. Their are consequences regardless of our personal opinions regarding free will and we just have to accept it.

Christianity is no difference, we are free to choose our actions and by them we choose our consequences, in both the natural and supernatural.

[BalanceFx]

Originally Posted by roli

Your philosophy and particular perspective should by no means be limited to Christianity. It is across the board in every area of life.

Who really is free under the confines and boundaries of law, standards, codes of ethics etc. in any society.
We have the free will and power to choose to live as we please, but only within certain perimeters, in essence ,does that mean we have no free will outside those perimeters. Their are consequences regardless of our personal opinions regarding free will and we just have to accept it.

Christianity is no difference, we are free to choose our actions and by them we choose our consequences, in both the natural and supernatural.

I was thinking more on ethics the other day since I dont define my by any religious standard and thought someone may one day ask me where I get my ethics from hehe. One thing did occur to me though briefly which someone may find interesting.

We are HARDWIRED to recognize faces and to show a goofy grin as children. In between the pooping and hunger we as babies had time to just look around and when we saw a face we would smile.

There are studies on it you can look up etc... But what else is hardwired? Flight or fight... sure but anything that we dont know about?

Perhaps ethics is? Perhaps not. Who knows but something I meant to research soon.