God and Depression

[Caladan]

some people are too bored with themselves and are unaware of the sky above...

You know. a certain British man once said.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

As a Jewish man, the question I would pose to him. would be. what happens when the stars gaze back?

 

[PolyHedral]

That's absurd... Not only do you have to make a pretty extensive generalization from a single instance when someone's being influenced to do something to "there is no free will", you also have to assume they did not act in accordance with their will. You know how many people Derren failed to convince?

Out of the people he decided to go through with, one refused. Also, I am not assuming that they refused to act with their will; That's my point. Their will was changed by Derren's actions several days earlier. Derren did not ask any question, or make any request; As far as the people involved knew, this was simply a random opportunity akin to finding a quarter on the ground.

Also, please remember that Derren is human, and has limited time, resources, patience and understanding. God and Satan, and any other supernatural entities who want to mess with us, are not so limited. If Derren can convince three people to rob a bank of their own "free will", why isn't it a given that Satan could do the same?

That's very close to saying that, if you explain to someone why spiders aren't dangerous thus ridding them of a lifelong fear and enabling them to touch a spider, you've taken away their free will - because without your influence they never would have done it. Which - you might be right about, but that's certainly not sufficient demonstration that we lack free will anymore than any other random thing you might come up with - like, when it's hot, we prefer cold drinks, so how can we be said to have free will when normally we wouldn't enjoy drinking something that cold.

What is sufficient demonstration that we lack free will? I don't actually know, since it always seemed to me that free will was a vague, metaphysical thing.

 

[Commoner]

Out of the people he decided to go through with, one refused. Also, I am not assuming that they refused to act with their will; That's my point. Their will was changed by Derren's actions several days earlier. Derren did not ask any question, or make any request; As far as the people involved knew, this was simply a random opportunity akin to finding a quarter on the ground.

Well, then any time I change my mind (will) - for instance, presented with a convincing (but fallacious) argument - is a demonstration of me not having free will? What Derren did was impressive because he managed to convince people to do something stupid without actually spelling it out for them or coercing them directly. He changed their perspective such that he could be resonably sure many of them would act as they did. And what Derren does is always impressive, but as far as being an argument against free will - I'm just not seeing it.

Oh, btw - I've always been quite interested in the selection process Derren does...

Also, please remember that Derren is human, and has limited time, resources, patience and understanding. God and Satan, and any other supernatural entities who want to mess with us, are not so limited. If Derren can convince three people to rob a bank of their own "free will", why isn't it a given that Satan could do the same?

He/it/they could, sure. But unless your claim is that unless we act of our own will all the time, we have no free will, that's not an argument against free will per se.

What is sufficient demonstration that we lack free will? I don't actually know, since it always seemed to me that free will was a vague, metaphysical thing.

I have no idea - I'm just saying Derren is about as strong of an argument as heat is. So, either they're both sufficient, or neither is. Derren Brown is much cooler though...

 

[Commoner]

You know. a certain British man once said.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

As a Jewish man, the question I would pose to him. would be. what happens when the stars gaze back?

You drag yourself to a hospital, because you've obviously drank too much absinth.

 

[Vendetta]

Why would god make people with mental disorders? (my sister is bi-polar, I have mild depression, my mother had constant anxiety)

Now for this thread assume a supreme being that created humanity exists. Why would he/she/it if it cared for the people it was creating make them with mental disorders? This can slippery slop slide into discussions about retardation, or even physical or even babies that are born and destined to die a painful death weeks later, etc.

How can anyone be depressed? All we need to do is stare at your avatar

 

[Caladan]

You drag yourself to a hospital, because you've obviously drank too much absinth.

Strong possibility. but its still amusing watching them stare at the stars for the next hour.

 

[AntEmpire]

You are making your own assumptions. How do you know if adam was made as an adult and didnt experience any form of a childhood? How do you know how long of a time period existed between adams creation and the eating from the tree incident? Adam and eve could have existed for a hundred years or more giving them ample experience that would be aquired through childhood and adulthood.

If you dont want me to make assumsions then here, lets look at the situation raw:

God made man and woman innocent.
God made a tree that would kill them and told them not to eat of it.
God made a decietful snake.
God sat back and watched what happened.

Is a snake the ruler of the underworld? The snake was punished and your argument was this was all some big scheme to make it just appear like the snake was punished, which again doesnt make any sense.

Snake = the devil/satan/antichrist? no? If its just a regular snake how does it talk?

As i mentioned in several posts in this thread including several of my posts to you. You can not have free will if you are forced to make choices whether they are good or bad. So if the creator didnt give adam and eve the choice to do something bad then they wouldnt have free will. Adam and eve were not forced to eat from the tree, or again, they would not have free will. The snake also had free will and both adam,eve and the snake suffered the consequences of doing something bad. If you warn your 13 year old not to play in traffic and as an adult they play in traffic and get hit by a car , that was their free will to choose that. But if you lock your 13 year old in a room and never let them out, and tell them not to play in traffic. Then your 13 year old will never have free will to disobey you and so they will just be your prisoner.

Only being able to do good things doesn't negate free will. We can't fly without machines, it doesnt negate free will. If it were possible for man to only do good, man could still chooce which good, how much good, when to do good, if man could do nuetral things as well man would have these options too. If man had free will but could only do good how great would this world be?

This just seems like anger on your part. If the creator gave us no choice to disobey, then you would be calling the creator an evil puppetmaster or a prison guard for taking our freedom away. Because we were given freedom you call the creator evil for giving us the freedom to choose to do bad things(if we couldnt choose bad things we wouldnt have freedom). Its a no win situation because you would complain in either situation.

No its just the way I've come to understand that part of that story.
If i didn't have a choice to disobey I would be fine with it.

I don't think the creator is evil, I don't think it exists. I think the creator from the christian story is just as evil as he is good.

 

[AntEmpire]

Snakes are the 3rd most powerful beings in existence? You are making some huge assumptions here.

Snakes can talk? No, satan/devil/antichrist can?

We do have our own free will and although we dont have a specific 2 trees not to touch, the concept is the same. What adam and eve did effects us the same way what you do has an effect on other people. If you smoked before your 13 year old was born then you could have passed down some disease etc. epigenetically to your child. If you smoked ever you could have caused someone else to have inhaled that smoke and they could get a disease from that etc. Just about everything you or i do has an impact on the whole world. So our free will is basically the same free will as adam and eve had.

The concept of paradise plus evil, I'm just saying without the evil it would be all good.

Yes its the same, and god is the cause for all that negative action, unless god doesn't exist, or god is ignorant.

I dont think men who wanted to use the bible for power, decided to edit out every time adam urinated. It makes more sense to say what happened in the bible was edited to keep it from being millions of pages or more long.

There are volumes strickly on adam and eve. The snake impregnated eve (thats what the forbidden fruit was, sex) and the reason mankind isn't pure is because we have the blood of the devil running in our veins, as we're all decendants of eve's children.

Sniper= serial killers in terms of choice, which was my point. If a sniper chooses to join the military and become a sniper they are choosing to kill people, whether its their own agenda or someone elses agenda its still choosing to kill people.

Kill 3 save 300, or kill 20 to for a personal agenda?

I get it they both kill people. But the reasoning is different and does matter.

 

[iholdit]

If you dont want me to make assumsions then here, lets look at the situation raw:

God made man and woman innocent.
God made a tree that would kill them and told them not to eat of it.
God made a decietful snake.
God sat back and watched what happened.



Snake = the devil/satan/antichrist? no? If its just a regular snake how does it talk?



Only being able to do good things doesn't negate free will. We can't fly without machines, it doesnt negate free will. If it were possible for man to only do good, man could still chooce which good, how much good, when to do good, if man could do nuetral things as well man would have these options too. If man had free will but could only do good how great would this world be?



No its just the way I've come to understand that part of that story.
If i didn't have a choice to disobey I would be fine with it.

I don't think the creator is evil, I don't think it exists. I think the creator from the christian story is just as evil as he is good.

We can go into how a snake can talk like how other animals can talk, but lets put that aside and assume the snake is satan. The snake or satan didnt force adam and eve to do anything so it was still adam and eves choice and they were aware of what the whole tree thing was about and they made their choice. How can you blame the creator for that?

If there is no bad to choose it does negate the loss factor involved in choosing. This is a game show mentality. When you go on a game show you dont worry about losing anything because in the worst case scenario you come home with nothing so you didnt lose anything. What would be the point of having free will if every decision you made had no possible negative consequence to it? That isnt free will if no matter what you do there will be nothing to lose.

 

[PolyHedral]

We can go into how a snake can talk like how other animals can talk, but lets put that aside and assume the snake is satan. The snake or satan didnt force adam and eve to do anything so it was still adam and eves choice and they were aware of what the whole tree thing was about and they made their choice. How can you blame the creator for that?

If there is no bad to choose it does negate the loss factor involved in choosing. This is a game show mentality. When you go on a game show you dont worry about losing anything because in the worst case scenario you come home with nothing so you didnt lose anything. What would be the point of having free will if every decision you made had no possible negative consequence to it? That isnt free will if no matter what you do there will be nothing to lose.

What's that part of the burial service? "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust?"

 

[iholdit]

Snakes can talk? No, satan/devil/antichrist can?



The concept of paradise plus evil, I'm just saying without the evil it would be all good.

Yes its the same, and god is the cause for all that negative action, unless god doesn't exist, or god is ignorant.



There are volumes strickly on adam and eve. The snake impregnated eve (thats what the forbidden fruit was, sex) and the reason mankind isn't pure is because we have the blood of the devil running in our veins, as we're all decendants of eve's children.



Kill 3 save 300, or kill 20 to for a personal agenda?

I get it they both kill people. But the reasoning is different and does matter.

So you believe the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil were really satans 2 penises?

So when the bible says eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it really means satans sperm went into eves vagina?

So when the bible says adam also ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, where did satans sperm go then, considering adam didnt have a vagina? Or do you believe adam had a vagina as well?

If the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge and good and evil was sex, then what does the fruit of the tree of life represent besides satans second penis?

If the creator didnt want adam and eve to have sex, then why are they commanded to be fruitful and multiply?

This is not about sex or satans penis being a tree etc. This is very simple, adam and eve were given free will and they chose to use that free will to do something negative even though they understood the consequences. This happens everyday, where someone chooses to do something negative even though they understand the consequences. For example people smoke even though the warning on the pack of cigarettes tells them it causes health problems. This is the same type of thing adam and eve did, they understood the consequences but they did it anyway.

 

[AntEmpire]

So you believe the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil were really satans 2 penises?

So when the bible says eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it really means satans sperm went into eves vagina?

So when the bible says adam also ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, where did satans sperm go then, considering adam didnt have a vagina? Or do you believe adam had a vagina as well?

If the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge and good and evil was sex, then what does the fruit of the tree of life represent besides satans second penis?

If the creator didnt want adam and eve to have sex, then why are they commanded to be fruitful and multiply?

This is not about sex or satans penis being a tree etc. This is very simple, adam and eve were given free will and they chose to use that free will to do something negative even though they understood the consequences. This happens everyday, where someone chooses to do something negative even though they understand the consequences. For example people smoke even though the warning on the pack of cigarettes tells them it causes health problems. This is the same type of thing adam and eve did, they understood the consequences but they did it anyway.

Snakes can talk? No, satan/devil/antichrist can?

The concept of paradise plus evil, I'm just saying without the evil it would be all good.

Yes its the same, and god is the cause for all that negative action, unless god doesn't exist, or god is ignorant.

Yes the entire story of adam and eve is exactly what they told you when you were in bible school as a child. The story doesn't have any additional meaning and there is only what you have learned about it. Anything else is a lie even if people have been researching it for decades. There aren't any books outside of the bible that talk about the story and you know everything, wooooah.

Quit talking about penises, the snake impregnated her, not the trees that doesn't make any sense... and if the trees belong to anyone its god. (so quit talking bout god's two dicks like that)

 

[chinu]

Why would god make people with mental disorders? (my sister is bi-polar, I have mild depression, my mother had constant anxiety)

Firstly, are you sure, that i can talk with "God" ?

_/\_
Chinu

 

[iholdit]

Snakes can talk? No, satan/devil/antichrist can?

The concept of paradise plus evil, I'm just saying without the evil it would be all good.

Yes its the same, and god is the cause for all that negative action, unless god doesn't exist, or god is ignorant.

Yes the entire story of adam and eve is exactly what they told you when you were in bible school as a child. The story doesn't have any additional meaning and there is only what you have learned about it. Anything else is a lie even if people have been researching it for decades. There aren't any books outside of the bible that talk about the story and you know everything, wooooah.

Quit talking about penises, the snake impregnated her, not the trees that doesn't make any sense... and if the trees belong to anyone its god. (so quit talking bout god's two dicks like that)

Like i said lets put aside the talking snakes. Evolutionists estimate there can be as many as 100 million species alive today, yet we only found less than 2 million. So we may only know of less than 2% of all species of snake and we already know there are birds that can talk. But im willing for the sake of this argument to say that the serpent is satan. So even if the serpent is satan, how does the rest of your argument make any sense?

You are believing what you were taught as a child and what you are saying doesnt make any logical sense. The bible tells us we are talking about eating from a tree and yet you are making this about a serpent impregnating eve, that makes no sense whatsoever. Adam and eve are told to be fruitful and multiply, yet you said sex is a sin, that makes no sense. You are adding all sorts of things here so you can attempt to justify your anger towards the creator. There is no mention in biblical scripture or in the epic of gilgamesh about a serpent impregnating a woman. If you have been researching this for decades then you have neglected to research the 2 texts that this is predominantly found in. I have read both.

You have not answered any of my questions from my last post. If your argument was valid you should have answers to all of my questions from my last post, yet you havent answered any of them.

 

[AntEmpire]

Firstly, are you sure, that i can talk with "God" ?

_/\_
Chinu

God would have to exist in the form of a being/person in order for that to be possible... I don't feel that is the case

 

[AntEmpire]

God made man and woman innocent.
God made a tree that would kill them and told them not to eat of it.
God made a decietful snake.

Either your god was stupid, or he knew what would happen.

Have you read the Book of Adam and Eve? It was a holy book that was not canonized due to its, length, and because it couldnt be interpreted so loosely as you do the story of genesis.