Freedom of Choice; Predestination

I find a couple of things here VERY fascinating about being here. First of all I a “old.” well over 40 and I am brand new. I have been involved with this site at least 10 minutes. The first thing that happened being old AND new is I end up in a philosophy group. I think that alone is fascinating.

As to free will or predestined, that could cover a lot of ground just trying to pick which view to start with. I will go with the most common and that has to do with philosophy and spirituality. After many years of reading and being a member of the Theosophical society I have personally come to this conclusion. “There is no conflict.” I love metaphors and and the one I created to describe this harmony is as follows.

We are all born in New York and we are all destined to go to God, whom lives in Las Angeles. Some of us may jump on the most direct highway and drive strait through without stopping. Others may make many stops and take the scenic route. They may take weeks or months. Others may go all the way to the west coast near San Francisco and turn around and go back to Connecticut. They may take many years especially if they decide to visit all the other states before they go.

The point is this, everyone knows God exists, some love him and go strait to him. Some deny him and go everywhere they can before they give up and accept their destiny. And some ignore him and will screw around for awhile and after exercising their free will for a while they will go to him,

All of us have free will to choose “when” we will accept our “destiny.” There are young children that may go to God early in their first life. There are very troubled people that may take many lifetimes. Sooner or later everyone “chooses their destiny.” Some are born enlightened enough to see and love God immediately, others get wrapped up in all the worldly distractions and take longer, some much longer.

Getting back to the metaphor, Some see and love God immediately, Some choose to go to the amusement parks and enjoy the wonders God created here first for awhile and will take the tourist route. Others need to deny the whole thing and keep criss crossing the country until they get tired of fighting, or just plain bored or whatever else may motivate them, but they eventually go. We are all destined to go to God, take another step up the spiritual evolutionary ladder if you will, and have the free will to choose when and how. It makes little difference whether you go in this life time or 20 lifetimes from now, eternity is a long long time Imagine the highest number you can and understand there are more of us than that at many different levels, some way behind us, some way ahead. This thing we call life, is just a small step we may or may not repeat in the spiritual evolutionary process..

Obviously for someone thats an old, new, I'm pretty mouthy and opinionated. Love me or hate me, thats your free choice, I live free on my destined path. Jerr

Well, I had a psychic girlfriend once. She broke up with me before I met her.

"Everyone knows God exists?" I think not. That's a major error in your neat little philosophy right there.

The question really is a catch 22. If there is a god and he knows all then there is no free will and if the is no god then everything is free will. There is no middle ground.

A voice is telling me to thank goodness for my good elementary school education.

What if God is Irish? Aha!

Jackie,

If you act purely upon random impulses, then you're not acting based on free will (there's no "will" there)

If everything you do is based on everything you are and have learned, then you are nothing more than a pre-programmed automaton.

Somewhere, in your head, there needs to be a "you" that is making the choice of how to act in a given situation. Now, it should be said that throughout your life, you are faced with hundreds of thousands of decisions to make--decision points that could not have been predicted by you, but that are, also, not random. These decision points are the results of large groups of people and "things" interacting, based on the laws of physics, some randomness, and the "free will" of those other intelligent agents.

But what is it, exactly, that you are basing your decisions on? You attempt to predict a desireable outcome, based on your own past experience. Sometimes you predict wrong, other times, you predict right. That conscious part of you weighs the experiences, the pros and cons, and comes to a decision. That's free will.

And unless you can prove it in some incontrovertible manner, there is no predestination.

I am also one of those people that does NOT agree that "paranormal phenomena exists." Sure, I've let myself be spooked by an over-active imagination, but nothing was ever really "there."

And (and this is a VERY difficult question)--what do you mean by "matter" (as in "does it matter")?