Do we really have free-will?

Question

To the secularist: If we are merely animated by stimuli and our responses are instictual like that of animals, how can we have free will?

To Christians and Jews: Doesn't the fact that no two people are exactly alike allready prove that there is no free-will? Person A makes different choices than person B due to what? If you say he has a different personality than I ask where did this personality come from and who or what created it? Who inserted the value of honesty into his soul?
I challenge you to take any action of a man and attribute a character value to it, for example, honesty. Where did this person get honesty from? Why did this person decide to value honesty over dishonesty?
Why do you beleive in God and the man next to you on the bus does not? Do you really think it is because you are smarter?
Who put it in my heart to desire to know the answer to these questions? I am not arrogant enought to say that I am the one responsible................

Answer 1

Hey Johnny In all my life I have never come across such an incoherent,ABSURD AND INCONSEQUENTIAL argument.
Get off the sauce please,then we can talk.

Answer 2

Ahhhh but you are responsible.

I look at it this way. I'm a parent. I have, from an early age, taught my children values, and rules. I have two children living in the same house and yet they are totally different.

I can drill into you from the age of two that broccoli is yummy but you alone tell me if it is to you or not. I am a tennis instructor and since they were little they had the same, free, unlimited instructions in tennis that others pay me dearly for, and yet one loves it and excels in the sport while the other doesn't care for it so he's never advance past an intermediate level, and yet he is advanced in basketball.

Here's a silly example...Every time a child is told not to pull on the puppy's tail because it's wrong and it will hurt the puppy, one child will be sad and say I'm sorry and hug the puppy. Another child will not believe it and pull the puppy's tail again to see if it's true. While yet another will pull it whether it hurts the puppy or not because he likes the attention, control, power, or reaction of the puppy.

To say that we don't have free choice is a cop out! That way nothing we do is truly our fault! The other edge of the sword is just as bad, no achievements are ours! I don't buy it!

Answer 3

Firstly do you believe in G-d?
The problem is not that when A chooses this and B chooses that its cause they different. Sometimes a person makes the choices he does because of a previous experience, for example; he chooses Coke over Fanta as he remembers Fanta didn't taste good. But the fact of free will is that he has the choice which to choose. Nobody is forcing him to choose Coke.

I don't understand what honesty has to do with anything.

Why do I believe in G-d? I believe in science, when you combine 2 elements you get a third, so to with this world we have to work backwards till we have the "first cause". Call it whatever you want but I call it G-d. It has nothing to do with being smarter then the next. Maybe some people accept they don't know everything while others don't. If you don't understand how something works do you therefore go and say its wrong? No, you accept that you won't know everything.

The highest form of pleasure in this world is intellectual. I feel you want to know as you want that feeling of "got it,it made sense" and not always living with doubt. Wondering if everything is right etc..
Do you believe in science? Science is always being proven wrong and having to change what they said to make more sense as they learn more.

Answer 4

You make a good and intelligent argument. However, the fact that no people are alike and no one makes the same choices rather supports free will. We make choices based on a complex alliance between the brain, heart, personal experience, understanding, and education. It was put into us to know right from wrong. It is inside every person: toddler, teenager, adult, and senior. The reason one person believes in God can also be multi-faceted. Life experience, parents, research, prayer, or miracles.

Answer 5

The fact that you ask the question shows an under-lying belief in God: what else is there to have free-will of? That being so, free-will does not discard the requirement of obedience.

And the answer is... Yes, we have free-will to obey or disobey, but each has its end result which one must be willing to accept.

Answer 6

On the contrary, if there was no free will, then wouldn't all people be the same? God doesn't make us do anything. It is my choice, but my decisions lead to consequences. God knows the future and what will happen. I don't.

Answer 7

That part has always puzzled me. It seems like telling someone they have free will to believe whatever they want and then telling them that if they believe anything other than what you say they will be going to hell or faced with eternal damnation is like breaking a bird's wings and then telling him "be free little birdie, be free".

Answer 8

Secularists do not hold that our responses are instinctual. Instinct mean "not learned." Human's learn from stimuli.

Answer 9

free-will versus destiny; neither can be proven so it comes down to what one chooses to believe. that being the case, it is moot to argue for either.

Answer 10

To a certain extent. You can choose what you want to eat tonight, but can't really choose to flap your wings and fly.