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Tom, You find free will a useful concept from a subjective point of view, right? In fact, don't you believe that we don't really have a choice (for lack of a better word) in the matter?
How would you say Prozac and other mind-altering substances affect free will and personal responsibility?
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Dana, would you consider Prozac a violation of free will?
I am not familiar enough with the effects of Prozac to answer that question.
I'm also not sure I consider the concept of "free will" a particularly helpful construction in the first place. Mind-altering and mood-altering drugs do expose some of the problems with it.
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quote:'Red' is not subjective. Red refers to a specific wavelength of light.
I do not consider Red to be a wavelength of light. Red refers to a certain experience people have. Often that experience is produced when certain wavelenghts of light enter the eye - but other times it can be produced in dreams, when no light wavelengths are involved. Red also refers to objects that produce that experience. "Red" light is only red insofar as it would produce the experience of red.
Normally, we assume that other people experience red in the exact same way that we do, even though we have no proof of that. If someone else is colorblind and sees red objects differently than we do, we could either say they don't really experience what we are talking about as red at all, or we could say that red looks different to them (meaning that objects that produce the experience of red in us produce a different experience in them.)
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I'm not sure that "red" is merely an experience, Tres. After all, we can objectively say "this color is red" even if someone else experiences it as brown, not least because we've defined "red" as a wavelength.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I'm not sure that "red" is merely an experience, Tres. After all, we can objectively say "this color is red" even if someone else experiences it as brown, not least because we've defined "red" as a wavelength.
If you wanted an objective definition of red, I think the best bet would be to base it off of the frequency response of L Cone cells.
I do slightly agree with Tresopax that we can't ignore the fact that concepts like the perception of colors are inherently tied to the way people perceive them, but I don't agree that this means you can't work towards an objective definition of them.
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quote:Originally posted by ricree101: If you wanted an objective definition of red, I think the best bet would be to base it off of the frequency response of L Cone cells.
Diferent people will have different alleles of the relevant genes expressed in cone cells. Whose do we count as the standard?
Some red things look red because we see only one wavelength of light coming from them. But lots of things appear red because they absorb certain green wavelengths.
Would the reponse at the cone level be the same between the two kinds of red? Or is the brain doing the heavy lifting ? I don't know the answer, but I suspect that the latter is the case.
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quote:Originally posted by ricree101: If you wanted an objective definition of red, I think the best bet would be to base it off of the frequency response of L Cone cells.
It's a little more complicated than that. The peak response of L cone cells is actually pretty much exactly yellow. S cones peak at blueish-violet and M cones peak at green, as you would expect. So color perception of light with wavelength of 550nm or longer is determined more or less by the difference in the signals from proximate L and M cone cells.
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Javert: It's taken me some time to get back to this thread. I simply forgot about it and from time to time I remembered how I hadn't gone through your whole reading. Here goes with chapter 9.
Chapter 9: There is no indication Jesus intentionally healed on the sabbath. Perhaps it is the fact that certain people took issue with healing on the sabbath that it warranted more mention than other days of the week.
God keeping certain people ignorant again is a measure of mercy for those unprepared to accept the truth. I can see how it might be appealing to have God jerk us around for just a moment so that we can somehow be joggled into obedience. But God does not want to force us all to obey, he want's us all to decide for ourselves what path we wish to tread. I discuss more on this topic later in this post.
Chapter 10: Your reading Jesus' parables as allegories. This is a mistake, parables are meant to be similar to allegories in that multiple things in the stories symbolize something unique. Parables are dissimilar to allegories in that most of the details mean nothing specific. The fact sheep have wool, black or brown faces, make a braying noise, eat grass, like to run and play, etc have no meaning. People who put their total trust in God do not ignore their own capabilities and faculties. They are not, to use a common phrase, "Dumb sheep." Jesus himself who was designed to be a perfect example for us followed his "Father" to the letter. But we don't read about Jesus acting as some sort of ignoramus who seems fake or without his own personality. Jesus was perfectly able to explain the reasoning behind His father's doctrine. He didn't just rat it off from time to time and say, "Obey OK?"
There is plenty of room for Christians to be their own people. But in a very real way if we are unwilling to sacrifice all things for God as He did for us, we can't attain the perfection or happy state he enjoys. Sheep in Jesus' parables are again objects the people around them could relate to. The shepherds taking care of them are far more intelligent than the sheep, and their greatest concern is the sheep's safety. If the sheep stand up and try to intellectualize everything they are directed to do, there is a very real danger they will get killed. If another man attempts to call the sheep to other pastures the sheep will not go, as they are attuned to the voice of "their" shepherd. Jesus clearly does not look at sheep as, "dumb followers," that is merely how the icon has evolved in our society. See Matthew 10:16
"Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."
How's that for an example of animal metaphor? Clearly sheep carry certain attributes Jesus thinks are attractive for us. It does not mean we need to become sheep in all things. Apparently snakes and doves also have some admirable attributes.
You quote from 10:36. I think you misunderstand in part Jesus' words. Jesus isn't saying, "If you don't believe my teachings, check out my miracles." He is saying, "If you don't believe my statement that I am the son of God, look at my works and consider them. Yes miracles fall into the category of works, but Jesus did alot more than perform miracles. His teachings have been endlessly scrutinized, his actions were available for public observation. All that He did testified of who He was. All it would take is the demonstration of Jesus committing a sin, or making a mistake to prove He was not who He claimed to be. A sin testifies just as strongly as a righteous act.
Miracles are certainly instructive, as somebody of Jesus' divine nature sent from an all loving God would certainly concern himself with the performing of acts He was uniquely capable of accomplishing. Jesus put the case before these men, and they demonstrate clearly that works were insufficient to cleanse their hearts of evil. They weren't denying that Jesus was the son of God because they honestly did not believe it. They were denying it because they didn't like the implications of such a truth. They didn't want to believe it, so they preferred to rid themselves of the evidence of that truth rather than conform to it. Look at the Jesus' works yourself. Do Jesus' actions as chronicled in the NT bear witness the truthfulness of His words or not? Was there more or less Jesus could have done in his time on earth in order to prove that he was the son of God?
If God acted in such an intrusive manner on a regular basis, we'd have a world full of people sworn to fight God and a world full of people who concluded that to fight against God is folly. There's no room for ambivalence, or self discovery.
I understand you don't believe that people when faced with undeniable miraculous evidence would ever choose to not believe anyway, but that's what the Bible states happened. I also understand that appears to be quite inconsistent that the NT people are showered with miracles and you and indeed many people are not. But again, if you want miracles from God that advance your happiness, you must first believe. Miracles performed for those who are not ready serve only to reinforce their determination to not believe.
You say that Jesus' words are, "Obfuscating, confusing, and don't make alot of sense." Perhaps you should consider that in this regard you find yourself in the company of Jesus' persecutors. I don't mean to say that had you been there you would have been one of those who wished Jesus dead, but had you been there and actually heard Jesus say those very things and witnessed those very miracles, would the realty of Jesus' instructions been any easier? Would serving your fellow man unbidden be any easier, do you do it now without any sort of miraculous prompting? When you look inside yourself do you honestly see a man seeking good direction wherever it may come from? Only you and God can answer that question. What I can say is so far in all your "Godless bible study," you have very little good to say about it. Perhaps there is an abject lack of quality in the writing, or perhaps you fail to acknowledge any. Perhaps I will see it in the next half of the book. The writings in the Bible have withstood the test of time thus far, and men have found much to admire and discuss in them. When faced with the writings, you are inclined to analyze them and pick them apart for weaknesses. Even the things you "agree" with are presented as arguments against Jesus. There is certainly nothing wrong with critiques, but surely you could have found something worthy of note that you find intriguing and good in the gospel of St John. Were none of Jesus' teachings or acts instructive or of worth to people? Or could they all have been said better and more succinctly by somebody else? I find Jesus' words, even when obscured by multiple translations, to be quite apt in many cases.
Chapter 11: I believe Lazerus is in fact the third person Jesus brings back from the dead. There is the child in the hearse, the girl in her home, and Lazerus. The only thing unique about Lazerus is that he had been dead for several days prior to being raised from the dead. I've heard that it was a superstition then that it took three full days for a soul to completely depart the body. I do not know if that is accurate.
It surprises me that Jesus being murdered for the sake of possibly saving a nation is merely in your words, "morally muddy." These pharisees do not deny that Jesus is performing miracles, and yet the fact he does so is justification for having him killed in their minds. You have said previously and I already noted this that people witnessing miracles would likely eagerly change their ways, or that if God performed more miracles more men would believe. Well here it is, justification for killing a man who is doing nothing but good, and miraculously so. Well perhaps Jesus should have done more miracles, or bigger ones. Healing the blind, feeding the 5,000, and raising the dead are clearly minor league stuff for these Pharisees. Perhaps if Jesus simply summoned a legion of angels it would be worth it for these Pharisees to risk their positions of high status and go up against the Roman empire. Again the retort of, "Moses fed our ancestors on mana for years, and you (Jesus) feed only 5,000 people a meal of bread?" These sorts of people are not honestly lacking in reason to believe in God.
As an aside you should read the short story, "Those Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula LeGuin. It's a short story that discusses this issue of one person bearing all the ills of a society so that it might exist happily quite well.
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The fact that you (or I) can't come up with a logical explanation for why God does or doesn't do something is not evidence that God didn't do it or evidence that God doesn't exist. Its a cop out.
I think this depends on the definition of God. If you believe God is omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good (oopg) then it's not unreasonable to look at the world and its many problems and ask if they are logically compatible with this definition (the much debated Problem of Evil). Over the centuries there have been many responses to this which, I think, share the feature that they only convince those who already believe in said oopg God. Which is not to say that these arguments aren't ingenious, because many of them are.
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The fact that you (or I) can't come up with a logical explanation for why God does or doesn't do something is not evidence that God didn't do it or evidence that God doesn't exist. Its a cop out.
Unfortunately, the same argument works perfectly well for Allah, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Invisible Pink Unicorns, or anything you can imagine.
Just because you can't come up with a logical explanation why gravity isn't actually just the magical Down Beams of the Invisible Pink Unicorns doesn't mean that isn't why we stay on earth.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Here's the thing: a definition of free will that suggests that Prozac (and, by extension, chocolate, sex, and coffee, which work much the same way) violates it is not a definition of free will which permits free will to exist.
pffh everybody knows sex and coffee ain't about free will.
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quote:Originally posted by Elmer's Glue: And the Racky for Longest Post goes to...
Well to be fair, that post would have been broken up into three smaller posts had I been more consistent.
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Every time I see this thread I'm reminded of my favorite university class ever, a philosophy class called "Godless Universe". That class rocked my socks - and I highly, highly recommend the book by the same title (written by my professor).
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