Thomas_More
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
All true. And there are many who think they are materialists but are not. They do not analyse their own feelings and thoughts and what lies behind them. If you have a thought or feeling, you should be able to follow it back, for a while, through its antecedents.
Nothing springs from nothing.
All Christians, including Calvinists, affirm free will, since without it the entire Christian doctrine and fable is irrelevant. The whole Christian concept of redemption is based on human free will creating Original Sin. No Original Sin, no need for redemption, no need for Christ.
But, uninformed as usual, you will retort, “What about predestination?”
I repeat again, Calvinism, by “predestination”, is referring to a particular doctrine of its own, that it is predestined who is going to Heaven and who to Hell. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Necessity vs Free Will debate. (Which debate was settled, btw, in the 18th century, where materialist thinkers are concerned. Advances in the study of organisms, beyond mechanics, only make, i repeat, free will more absurd, by comprehending complexity and its infinite multiplication, beyond mere mechanical physics,of antecedents, causes, effects, motives, subconscious as well as conscious. Free will is an absurdity).” But the plainest common garden use of “free will” just means something like an uncoerced choice made from alternative possibilities.”
*******
No one can choose other than as s/he chooses, and every choice is a yielding to the motive that weighs most heavily on the will.
One cannot choose in accord with the weakest motive, but only in accord with the strongest. The strongest motive isn’t necessarily the most rational.
Using the term “free will” out of its historical context in the history of thought is just further debasement of and loose use of language, damaging coherence and rendering terms meaningless. Free choice is as foolish as free will. Choice and will, minus the idealist adjective, are however fully consistent with a materialist understanding. There is no First Cause, without being itself an effect, not even the Big Bang, which was surely an effect as well as a cause.
A believer in free will is applying deism to “Man” and to him/herself. Free will is idealist, deistic thought. It is the negation too of historical materialism, which is based on the analysis of social cause and effect, and its application to the human mind too; social movement and psychological changes being all part of the dynamic.But then, since you believe in free will, why not save yourself the frustration and anger of being a socialist and just stop being one? Abracadabra!😄
Since science deals with matter, and motion is integral to matter, any scientist seemingly believing in free will is either interpreting the term differently from the materialist philosophers or else is trying to unite science with religious dogma (and many scientists are avowedly deists). Materialist philosophy has already disproven free will by means of reason.
I assume you do party political work. Why, if people’s wills are not subject to motive? It is surely then a waste of time trying to persuade them of anything, since they are independent of persuasion, of cause and effect?
1) Am i free not to resent it if i resent it, is the point.
2) Precisely because organisms are more complex makes their free will even more absurd. What you are is the result of so many intricate layers, antecedents, motives etc , most of which you are not even conscious of.
You are assuming they are thinking rationally, yet you have just said that their paying billions for bunkers proves they aren’t bright.
So is ignoring climate not very bright on their part. Since the profit system isn’t bright in the first place …
A whiff of seasonal air brings a memory to your mind. Were you free to have that memory or not?
You forgot to make the tea because you were thinking of something else. Were you free to forget to make the tea or not? Were you free to make the tea in spite of forgetting to do so?
My opinions infuriate you. Are you free not to be infuriated by what infuriates you? Are you free not to have the opinions you have?
Something causes you great sorrow. Are you free to not feel the sorrow? Are you free to feel it?BJ, you are not beyond the laws of cause and effect. Your ideas, opinions and feelings are not. Your actions are not. Your choices are not. Your socialism is not. Your will is not.
None of these things could exist outside of the laws of cause and effect. Consequently, all your choices, ideas, opinions, thoughts, feelings and actions, your likes and dislikes, are determined by what precedes them in the chain of cause and effect, including your agency to change the direction of that chain. I am not denying you possess will, only that it is free and independent. It only feels that way to you because you are not analysing its nature; you are not cognisant of the laws of motion that rule matter, including your brain, senses and nervous system.Plus it’s just (like the Falklands) a convenience to have a “British” war to divert workers’ minds here, again, from their poverty and into patriotic fervour.
A “limited” nuclear war is impossible, as anyone reading (or watching) Carl Sagan’s warning will know.
Even a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan alone would bring about a global nuclear winter which would kill us all.China too, but that’s a given.
Wikipedia:
” In 1999, several teachers in Hiroshima refused to put up the anthem while the Hiroshima Education Board demanded that they do so. As the tension arose between them, a vice-principal killed himself. A similar incident in Osaka in 2010 also occurred, with 32 teachers refusing to sing the song in a ceremony. In 2011, nine more teachers joined the rebellion, along with another eight in 2012.[48] Hashimoto Toru, the mayor of Osaka, stated that “t was good that criminals who are intent on breaking the rules have risen to the surface”.[49] Some have protested that such rules violate the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the “freedom of thought, belief and conscience” clause in the Constitution of Japan,[50] but the Board has argued that since schools are government agencies, their employees have an obligation to teach their students how to be good Japanese citizens. Teachers have unsuccessfully brought criminal complaints against Governor of Tokyo Shintarō Ishihara and senior officials for ordering teachers to honour the Hinomaru and “Kimigayo”.[51] After earlier opposition, the Japan Teachers Union accepts the use of both the flag and national anthem; the smaller All Japan Teachers and Staffs Union still opposes both symbols and their use inside the school system.[52]
In 2006, Katsuhisa Fujita, a retired teacher in Tokyo, was threatened with imprisonment and fined 200,000 yen (roughly 2,000 US dollars) after he was accused of disturbing a graduation ceremony at Itabashi Senior High School by urging the attendees to remain seated during the playing of the national anthem.[53] At the time of Fujita’s sentence, 345 teachers had been punished for refusing to take part in anthem related events, though Fujita is the only man to have been convicted in relation to it.[54] On 21 September 2006, the Tokyo District Court ordered the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to pay compensation to the teachers who had been subjected to punishment under the directive of the Tokyo Board of Education. The then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi commented, “It is a natural idea to treat the national anthem importantly”. The ruling was appealed by the Metropolitan Government.[55] From 23 October 2003 to 2008, 410 teachers and school workers were punished for refusing to stand and sing the anthem as ordered by school principals.[56] Teachers can also be punished if their students do not stand while “Kimigayo” is played during school ceremonies.[50]
On 30 May 2011 and 6 June 2011, two panels of the Supreme Court of Japan ruled that it was constitutional to require teachers to stand in front of the Hinomaru and sing the Kimigayo during school ceremonies. In making the ruling, the panels ratified the decision of the Tokyo High Court in ruling against 13 teachers who had asked for court relief after being disciplined between 2003 and 2005 for refusing to stand and sing the anthem.[57]
Outside of the school system, there was a controversy regarding “Kimigayo” soon after the passage of the 1999 law. A month after the law’s passage, a record containing a performance of “Kimigayo” by Japanese rock musician Kiyoshiro Imawano was removed by Polydor Records from his album Fuyu no Jujika (冬の十字架, cross in winter). Polydor did not want to attract harassment from far-right groups. In response, Imawano re-released the album through an independent label with the track in question.”
