Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[jeremyp]

If Adam hadn't have eaten the forbidden fruit, then disease and death would not exist. Stop blaming God.

It’s God’s fault that eating the forbidden fruit triggered the creation of all the disease.

It was also God who denied humans access to the Tree of Life and that was because he didn’t want humans to become gods.

If I believed any of the nonsense in Genesis to be true, I absolutely would blame God.

[Stranger]

If Adam hadn't have eaten the forbidden fruit, then disease and death would not exist.

Not only does this have bugger all to do with what I said, it also wouldn't justify making all future generations suffer with disease and death, even if free will made the slightest bit of sense in this situation (which it doesn't).

Stop blaming God.

Why? If genesis is true (literally or figuratively) then god is obviously to blame. The god in the story is a vindictive monster.

[Enki]

If Adam hadn't have eaten the forbidden fruit, then disease and death would not exist. Stop blaming God.

Stranger makes a good point in that this has little to do with his comment that you alluded to.

However, as you seem to have brought up the story of the 'forbidden fruit' as being in any sense believable then consider a few other utterances from your OT.

God's love entails destroying all the first born in Egypt (psalm 136). A real family man your God is!

All witches should be killed(Ex 22:18). Really shows his expansive humanity that does!

God wants to destroy all Jews because they don't believe in Him. Luckily He is talked out of His vindictive attitude by Moses.(Num 14: 1-36) Phew!

A stubborn and rebellious son should be stoned to death.(Deut 21:18) Good old family values again!

God believes that if a person is gathering sticks on the Sabbath he should be stoned to death. Pernickity, isn't He, your God?

He didn't want imperfect people to be around Him, people such as the blind, the lame, dwarves, hunchbacks, those with mutilated faces etc.(Lev 21:17). Not exactly all encompassing, is He?

When God lived in a box(The Ark of the Covenant) He could get quite stroppy and irritable at times. When  some people looked in His box, He reacted by killing 50,000 of them.(1 Sam 6:19). I'd call that a little over the top, wouldn't you?

So, let me make it clear. If these stories, including the preposterous Adam and Eve story, are in any sense literally true then all we have is a monster. I don't blame your God, because I have no belief in Him, but, if He did really exist then he is ultimately responsible for all that He has created, and that includes human beings and diseases.

[Outrider]

If Adam hadn't have eaten the forbidden fruit, then disease and death would not exist. Stop blaming God.

That would be the fruit that was required to be eaten before you could understand right and wrong, yes? That would be the fruit that God made readily accessible despite the obvious hazard, rather than hiding away from the intellectual and moral children in his care?

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

That would be the fruit that was required to be eaten before you could understand right and wrong, yes? That would be the fruit that God made readily accessible despite the obvious hazard, rather than hiding away from the intellectual and moral children in his care?

O.

Or is it the 'fruit' of experiencing doing wrong after choosing wrong over right?

[Stranger]

Or is it the 'fruit' of experiencing doing wrong after choosing wrong over right?

Well, it's described as "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (NIV), rather than "the tree of experiencing doing wrong", so it would appear not. Also, after god has his tantrum, he says "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil." (NIV).

However, it's a fairytale that Spud seems to believe, and you seem to be supporting, so why ask the rest of us?

Why don't you tell us what you think it all means, and how it could possibly justify the vindictive tantrum that the god character had afterwards that ended up with all of humanity having to suffer disease and death afterwards (according to Spud)?

[Outrider]

Or is it the 'fruit' of experiencing doing wrong after choosing wrong over right?

If you're not a literalist, the argument's moot. If your contention is, though, that Adam and Eve were literal people created ex nihilo and are responsible for 'the fall', it's a question that needs an answer.

O.

[Spud]

Well, it's described as "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (NIV), rather than "the tree of experiencing doing wrong", so it would appear not. Also, after god has his tantrum, he says "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil." (NIV).

However, it's a fairytale that Spud seems to believe, and you seem to be supporting, so why ask the rest of us?

Why don't you tell us what you think it all means, and how it could possibly justify the vindictive tantrum that the god character had afterwards that ended up with all of humanity having to suffer disease and death afterwards (according to Spud)?

Remember, that isn't how the story ends. Through the death of Christ, access to the tree of life is restored, in the new earth (Revelation 22).

[Stranger]

Remember, that isn't how the story ends. Through the death of Christ, access to the tree of life is restored, in the new earth (Revelation 22).

And you think that makes it all okay, do you? Your god  has a tantrum, goes on a binge of sadistic torture and murder but then makes things all 'nice' again? It really is incredible what bizarre moral gymnastics believers are prepared to go through to avoid facing up to the fact that the god described in the bible is morally repugnant as well as apparently suffering from dissociative identity disorder.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

If you're not a literalist, the argument's moot. If your contention is, though, that Adam and Eve were literal people created ex nihilo and are responsible for 'the fall', it's a question that needs an answer.

O.

If I am right your contention is that they did not know what they were doing....which involves not knowing through communion with, who they were disobeying and that is unlikely. Also you can know of something even though you haven't experienced it.
It seems to me that modern translations and understandings of know have to give way to contemporary hebrew and theological understandings and usages of the verb to know and the word knowledge. IMO what God is saying to them is that they will have experiential rather than theoretical knowledge of Good and evil if they deviate from their present communion with God, and that is understandible withion or without a literal Adam and Eve account.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The arguments against free will are grounded in logic and scientific principles.

I take it you mean from the philosophy of determinism and the particle theory. However as some have said repeatedly that science includes probability and on the face of it probablism is at odds with determinism. Even if it came down to the physical properties and position of particles, that would tell us nothing about moral choice imho.

[Stranger]

Vlad, please try to stop messing up your quote boxes!

I take it you mean from the philosophy of determinism and the particle theory. However as some have said repeatedly that science includes probability and on the face of it probablism is at odds with determinism.

No. If there are probabilities involved that just means that the system is non-deterministic because it involves some element of randomness. Still no room for the self-contradictory version of 'free will' that requires a non-deterministic system that sill manages to be purposeful and non-random.

See: Deterministic system.

"In mathematics, computer science and physics, a deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system. A deterministic model will thus always produce the same output from a given starting condition or initial state."

Even if it came down to the physical properties and position of particles, that would tell us nothing about moral choice imho.

How so? Note the argument is not directly about physical particles. It would apply just as much to a mind regardless of how it worked. If you don't have determinism, then you have randomness. Neither is 'free will' in anyway that would make sense in this context.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I take it you mean from the philosophy of determinism and the particle theory.

No. He means that if you assert that thinking necessarily must be done by a stand-alone homunculus called a “soul” then that soul must itself do some thinking, which gives you a logically impossible infinite regress. 
 

However as some have said repeatedly that science includes probability and on the face of it probablism is at odds with determinism.

No it isn’t. Probability is a statement about knowledge of reality, not about reality itself. Whether “true” randomness happens at the quantum level is unknown.   

Even if it came down to the physical properties and position of particles, that would tell us nothing about moral choice imho.

Why not?

[Outrider]

If I am right your contention is that they did not know what they were doing....which involves not knowing through communion with, who they were disobeying and that is unlikely.

My contention is not about whether they knew that it was God they were talking to, but rather that the depiction is that they had no awareness of the consequences of good and evil/right and wrong - that's what is portrayed as being granted by eating the fruit, hence the sudden appreciation of the 'wrongness' of being naked. If they knew that disobeying was 'wrong', then what was it that the 'fruit of the tree of knowledge' was supposed to give them that they didn't have already?

Also you can know of something even though you haven't experienced it.

Perhaps. But that still doesn't explain what it was that the fruit would do. Why does eating the fruit suddenly make them aware of the alleged problem of nudity if they already had 'theoretical knowledge'?

It seems to me that modern translations and understandings of know have to give way to contemporary hebrew and theological understandings and usages of the verb to know and the word knowledge.

Perhaps, but I'm less concerned about what the people that made up the story though they meant, and more interested in what people who want to implement theocracies and deny rights to people here and now believe about it. I'm therefore concerned with the modern translations, and the modern interpretation of them.

IMO what God is saying to them is that they will have experiential rather than theoretical knowledge of Good and evil if they deviate from their present communion with God, and that is understandible withion or without a literal Adam and Eve account.

Which seems a) even less of a grounds for introducing death, pain and suffering; b) that it doesn't introduce anything to humanity that wasn't already there, so is meaningless; c) doesn't explain how anything acquired there is inherently 'passed on' to their descendants; and d) still relies on the notion of a literal Adam and Eve.

And it's not their 'communion with God', that was still there after the fruit, they were still talking to him. It could be argued that God's attitude to them changed, I suppose, but I suspect that's not an interpretation that you'd go for....

And none of that explains why God would have put the tree within reach in the first place. It place a cherubim to guard the gate to Eden, and a flaming sword to guard the tree of life after the fact, but didn't think to do that beforehand, despite the dire prospects for the untold billions of descendants due to inherit sin?

O.

[jeremyp]

I take it you mean from the philosophy of determinism and the particle theory.

No, I mean what I said: logic and scientific principles.

However as some have said repeatedly that science includes probability and on the face of it probablism is at odds with determinism.

If the Universe is deterministic, there is no room for free will but if it has a random element as in, for example, the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, you are just saying that our behaviour is partly driven by random events. That's not "will" of any kind.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No, I mean what I said: logic and scientific principles.
If the Universe is deterministic, there is no room for free will but if it has a random element as in, for example, the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, you are just saying that our behaviour is partly driven by random events. That's not "will" of any kind.

You need then explain the premises of your logic and the unbroken chain of logic and state which scientific principles you mean.
Quantum mechanics is probabalistic though. So events in the universe are Random, determined or probabalistic. I found this article quite interesting.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/determinism-classical-argument-against-free-will-failure/

One would have to ask how moral decisions are taken and whether they are bound to physical determination.

[Stranger]

Quantum mechanics is probabalistic though. So events in the universe are Random, determined or probabalistic.

Probabilistic isn't a third class of events, it's just a combination of randomness and determinism. You can see this because we can recreate any probability distribution (such as those given by quantum mechanics) using a random source and a (deterministic) algorithm.

I found this article quite interesting.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/determinism-classical-argument-against-free-will-failure/

I didn't. Never got to the point.

One would have to ask how moral decisions are taken and whether they are bound to physical determination.

Why? It doesn't matter. It's either deterministic or with a sprinkling of randomness. Neither of which results in anything remotely like a relevant concept of 'free will'.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad, please try to stop messing up your quote boxes!

No. If there are probabilities involved that just means that the system is non-deterministic because it involves some element of randomness. Still no room for the self-contradictory version of 'free will' that requires a non-deterministic system that sill manages to be purposeful and non-random.

See: Deterministic system.

I have no beef with you over the science. My beef is with philosophical determinism. I believe science cannot support philosophical determinism in that it is not possible from the initial state of the universe to theoretically predict with 100% accuracy any further state, not because of a fillable shortfall in knowledge or perspective but because of the impossibility of the task and the nature of the universe.

Freewill could then be an emergent property i.e. not exhibited by contributing factors themselves or freewill operates in the non physical aspect of existence.

[Outrider]

I have no beef with you over the science. My beef is with philosophical determinism. I believe science cannot support philosophical determinism in that it is not possible from the initial state of the universe to theoretically predict with 100% accuracy any further state, not because of a fillable shortfall in knowledge or perspective but because of the impossibility of the task and the nature of the universe.

What is it about the 'nature of the universe', in your understanding that makes future states inherently beyond prediction? The apparent nature of block time suggests that not only is it potentially predictable but the concept of a future being somehow a result of the present and not just a different location in a complete spacetime is questionable.

Freewill could then be an emergent property i.e. not exhibited by contributing factors themselves or freewill operates in the non physical aspect of existence.

You're jumping the gun a bit there; you'd have to explain how free will is a valid concept at all. Decision are either the result of previous activity (i.e. not free) or are random (i.e. are not will). Where does this seemingly nonsensical 'third way' come in?

O.

[jeremyp]

I have no beef with you over the science. My beef is with philosophical determinism. I believe science cannot support philosophical determinism in that it is not possible from the initial state of the universe to theoretically predict with 100% accuracy any further state,

The equations we use to predict future states of the Universe are completely deterministic. It's only with the Copenhagen interpretation that the non determinism sneaks in and the Copenhagen interpretation might be wrong. Even then, this does not help the case for free will. It would lead to some aspects of why you do things to be deterministic and some aspects to be completely random. Neither option really allows free will in.

not because of a fillable shortfall in knowledge or perspective but because of the impossibility of the task and the nature of the universe.

Freewill could then be an emergent property i.e. not exhibited by contributing factors themselves or freewill operates in the non physical aspect of existence.

I think it's an emergent illusion.

[Stranger]

I have no beef with you over the science. My beef is with philosophical determinism. I believe science cannot support philosophical determinism in that it is not possible from the initial state of the universe to theoretically predict with 100% accuracy any further state, not because of a fillable shortfall in knowledge or perspective but because of the impossibility of the task and the nature of the universe.

Freewill could then be an emergent property i.e. not exhibited by contributing factors themselves or freewill operates in the non physical aspect of existence.

There are, of course, many reasons why it's impossible (for humans) to predict future states of all systems: practicality, chaos (mathematical sense), and possible actual randomness. But this cannot change the fundamentals. If the system is fully deterministic, then there still can only have been one possible outcome (even if it is chaotic). If it's not deterministic then the outcome will be influenced by randomness which isn't 'free will' (you can call it 'free' but it certainly can't be 'will').

You can have free will in the compatibilist sense but not in the magical sense needed for it to be relevant to an omniscient god.

Adding a 'non-physical aspect' doesn't help either because the restrictions are logical and not related to physical laws. As long as you have a system that changes over time (as minds must), you'll have the same problem.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I believe science cannot support philosophical determinism in that it is not possible from the initial state of the universe to theoretically predict with 100% accuracy any further state, not because of a fillable shortfall in knowledge or perspective but because of the impossibility of the task and the nature of the universe.

Just to note that all you've said here is that something is not possible because of its impossibility – you seem to have forgotten the argument part.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

No. He means that if you assert that thinking necessarily must be done by a stand-alone homunculus called a “soul” then that soul must itself do some thinking, which gives you a logically impossible infinite regress. 
 
No it isn’t. Probability is a statement about knowledge of reality, not about reality itself. Whether “true” randomness happens at the quantum level is unknown.   

Why not?

I’m glad you have come out for impossibility and for the illogic of infinite regress.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

My contention is not about whether they knew that it was God they were talking to, but rather that the depiction is that they had no awareness of the consequences of good and evil/right and wrong - that's what is portrayed as being granted by eating the fruit, hence the sudden appreciation of the 'wrongness' of being naked. If they knew that disobeying was 'wrong', then what was it that the 'fruit of the tree of knowledge' was supposed to give them that they didn't have already?

well as I have said before there is theoretical knowledge and there is experiential knowledge. My contention is they had the theoretical knowledge. Since they were talking with God.

Perhaps. But that still doesn't explain what it was that the fruit would do. Why does eating the fruit suddenly make them aware of the alleged problem of nudity if they already had 'theoretical knowledge'?

Perhaps, but I'm less concerned about what the people that made up the story though they meant, and more interested in what people who want to implement theocracies and deny rights to people here and now believe about it. I'm therefore concerned with the modern translations, and the modern interpretation of them.

Which seems a) even less of a grounds for introducing death, pain and suffering; b) that it doesn't introduce anything to humanity that wasn't already there, so is meaningless; c) doesn't explain how anything acquired there is inherently 'passed on' to their descendants; and d) still relies on the notion of a literal Adam and Eve.

And it's not their 'communion with God', that was still there after the fruit, they were still talking to him. It could be argued that God's attitude to them changed, I suppose, but I suspect that's not an interpretation that you'd go for....

And none of that explains why God would have put the tree within reach in the first place. It place a cherubim to guard the gate to Eden, and a flaming sword to guard the tree of life after the fact, but didn't think to do that beforehand, despite the dire prospects for the untold billions of descendants due to inherit sin?

O.

I’m not an expert on nudity or why people decided they could not let it all hang out.
Communion and unbroken communion is I think more than just talking to someone. Deliberate flippant understatement on your part?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The equations we use to predict future states of the Universe are completely deterministic. It's only with the Copenhagen interpretation that the non determinism sneaks in and the Copenhagen interpretation might be wrong.

”sneaking in”? You make that sound like a bad thing. Do you want it to be wrong because it upsets your faith in science somehow?

Even then, this does not help the case for free will.

True but it really damages the case for determinism.