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The Forum > Article Comments > Do we have free will? > Comments

Do we have free will? : Comments

By Louis O'Neill, published 5/11/2018

Unpacking Sam Harris’ belief that we don’t have control over our actions.

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This essay communicates a very radical Understanding of the nature of True Freedom and the illusion of free will:

http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/Aletheon/perfectfreedomnotfreewill.html

One thing that should be quite obvious is that to be a sinner is to be constitutionally divorced from the possibility of exercising free will.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Monday, 5 November 2018 2:09:59 PM
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Somethimes choices are pushed on us. Some take those choices others don't. For everything else, we choose, strive, and train to be the people we've become.

Success in anything isn't a given, but the ability to choose is always there.
Posted by Not_Now.Soon, Monday, 5 November 2018 2:11:08 PM
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Yes, not now. When it comes right down to it and the choice between being true to your own moral compass or just being a ratbag R sole, there's always a choice.

On the other hand, none choose to be born left or right-handed, gay or straight. Your genetic code seems to be dealt by the cosmic wheel of fortune and just like the roulette wheel, where your number falls seems down to pure blind chance and the genetic code of all your forebears?

Free will is exercised every day, as to whether or not the used car salesman does or doesn't sell that rust bucket death trap to that kid or not, or whether the Polly lies through his very, Christian to the back molar, teeth in order to secure mere political advantage and one more term in office.

When one is being belaboured with hate speech or verballing it's all too easy to lose it and reply in kind, which never ever improves outcomes.

So, the reality is every day in hundreds of ways we exercise our free will. We can choose to do the right thing and address climate change, e,g., or just ignore the evidence in favour of the few lousy bucks we currently make, mining and selling coal? Ostensibly to swell some offshore foreign-owned coffer. And as our share, an allegorical, forty pieces of silver?

And nowhere is my rationale have I raised my usual topic of thorium and why we should burn the most energy dense material on the planet in place of coal, nowhere!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Monday, 5 November 2018 5:32:08 PM
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Polly lies through his very, Christian to the back molar, teeth,
when one is being belaboured with hate speech. We can choose , nowhere is my rationale have I raised my usual topic.
Posted by nicknamenick, Monday, 5 November 2018 5:50:01 PM
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Daffy Duck,

<<One thing that should be quite obvious is that to be a sinner is to be constitutionally divorced from the possibility of exercising free will>>

Are you saying that once a paedophile, always a paedophile? Can thieves and liars never be rehabilitated by responding positively to Jesus' offer of salvation?

The Scriptures take a very different view through to that determinism:

"Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

When the inner person is changed through a relationship with Jesus Christ, all kinds of sinners are revolutionised to the point where the apostle Paul could say of them, 'That is what SOME OF YOU WERE'.

If you don't believe me, take a read of Out of Egypt: One Woman's Journey out of Lesbianism by Jeanette Howard (Monarch Books 1991).
Posted by OzSpen, Monday, 5 November 2018 5:52:12 PM
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Will preparation services are provided free for people eligible for a full Centrelink Age Pension
Posted by nicknamenick, Monday, 5 November 2018 6:08:47 PM
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