| Subject: The water is fine, come on in. |
Author:
Damoclese
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Date Posted: 09/ 3/03 2:43pm
In reply to:
Wade A. Tisthammer
's message, "Be sure there's water" on 09/ 3/03 1:42pm
>>
>>This, to me, puts the question back a notch. Who made
>>our brains the way they are such that they would make
>>categorical mistakes? God. Do we want our theories to
>>be wrong? Of course not. It's just a consequence of
>>how we think. Who wired us?
>
>I can see this point of view, but I still think you’re
>underestimating human responsibility here. Often
>scientists ignore the limitations of their discipline
>or those knowledgeable have failed to adequately
>inform the rest of us, or perhaps we have not tried
>hard enough to listen, etc.
I'm not sure what you mean. In Psychology, the debate as to what makes us who we are and what we think has always centered between two things, nature and nurture. Some of the founders like Freud for example, have gone so far as to assert there is absolutely no free will, or hard determinism. After studying Psychology or profiling, it's easy to understand why. Sometimes genetics makes people do things. However big the synaptic syanpses are with whatever neurotransmitter is in between them is our free will. Regardless, what you are saying seems to conflict with the two things that do make us who we are, and determine what it is we will do, namely, nature, or the environment. Are you prepared to reject one or both of them? Would you rather believe we possess freedom beyond our environment and our biology when it comes to how we act and why?
I'm not saying we shouldn't be responsible if we have the option. I'm saying that those who aren't responsible probably for reasons of biology or environment, never had it in them to begin with. (which roughly means I don't think people have an "option" to be responsible or not. Sure, you COULD do action x theoretically, but will you? Taken as a psychological entity with many beliefs that have varying degrees of discomfort, the answer is probably not, and if you DO action x, it probably means those conflicts don't exist for that person which all ultimately gets traced to either environment, or genetics.
Of course, both genetics and the environment into which we are born are things of which we have no say in. If God exists, he knows all about nature and nurture and what he's subjecting us to and what the final outcome of doing so will be. Responsibility for being what God made us, namely human, isn't going to help shift the blame from God.
>
>Ah, you’re forgetting something. God may be perfect,
>but the people who wrote the Bible are fallible humans
>like you and me. More importantly, the people
>reading the Bible are fallible.
So what you are saying is that God, a perfect entity using the holy spirit to inspire writers did not either a) want to overcome human imperfection or b) couldn't overcome human perfection and that this same holy spirit upon interpretation either a) doesn't want to overcome human misgivings or b) couldn't overcome human misgivings on which hinge our eternal fates?
>
>Eh, sort of. On one view (which I hold) God is the
>personification of ethics, rules of justice,
>etc. He is burdened by them, and burdened by who he
>is. So he is the higher reality, and somewhat
>limited because of it. It may be complicated,
>but I believe that is the way reality operates.
So really, he's more or less a glorified human being complete with limitations?
>
>Again, human responsibility and free will. Once we’re
>given free will, it’s up to us to choose our
>own destiny. We choose, God cannot, else it
>wouldn’t really be free will by definition. (God
>cannot do the logically impossible.)
Would you have me believe people choose to be mentally retarded or schizophrenic? How about being paedeophiles? Do they choose that too? How about sexual orientation? Is that a choice? Do people ever choose in life to be a complete derelict bum or does every person make what they think is the best decision given the circumstances?
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