ya we have the godparents under control.

It's Monte and his hot wife isn't it?

a catholic child to be baptized requires catholic godparents.

yeah i know you were kidding, but im just a notorious smartass

only one of them needs to be Catholic actually.

If you are religious you are wasting your brain power. I think that about sums up everything there is to say about it.

GG

>conscious thought implies free will.

No it doesn't. There is no contradiction between consciousness and predistination. Your assertion is just that, an assertion, and not a logical argument. It's quite conceivable and possible that while we are conscious and self-aware, that we are robot-like and everything we do is predetermined based on genetics, biology and experience.

There is way more evidence to suggest we are robots following a path than there is of "free will". Here's a few experiements to demonstrate your lack of free will:
- Take an axe to your head, really get a good whack at it, make sure you take out some grey matter, and take the SAT. Freely decide to get as good of a score that you got when applying to college.

- Freely decide to believe you are 10 feet tall (and really believe it).

- Given that you are a believer in God, try to not believe in God. I am certain you can't and more than I can freely decide to believe in God.

>B). If something cannot not be explained by physics (both what we already know and what we don't know yet), then there must be some force that extends beyond those natural laws (ie some sort of supernatural).

Perhaps we are talking semantics. If by supernatural you mean something unknown, that could become known in the future, and thus make it within the realm of physics, then I have no issue with "supernatural" statement. If however by supernatural, you mean a conscious, or all knowing, or all powerful being, then your statement is makin a leap and illogical.

> So everything would still be predetermined

a) I did not state Heisenberg uncertainty principle was evidence of predestination or free will. I was asking for clarification.

b) I reject you above logic. There is no reason to believe there is predistination because particles have a postion and velocity. The two are not connected, and you conviently skipped the fact that it's position and velocity can not be known. Besides, ironically if it was evidence of predistination it would destroy your argument (because your argument that predistination goes against consciousness is silliness)

Biteme I'm so going to pwn you here.

"There is way more evidence to suggest we are robots following a path than there is of "free will". Here's a few experiements to demonstrate your lack of free will:
- Take an axe to your head, really get a good whack at it, make sure you take out some grey matter, and take the SAT. Freely decide to get as good of a score that you got when applying to college.

- Freely decide to believe you are 10 feet tall (and really believe it).

- Given that you are a believer in God, try to not believe in God. I am certain you can't and more than I can freely decide to believe in God. "

Your examples are entirely far fetched and not applicable to the point of what i was saying. Free will is conscious choice between coffee and tea in the morning, or going right or left, or choosing to read this wall of text that i am about to write. Your examples are basically choosing between something that is possible, and something that isn't possible. IE with the knowledge i posses there is no way i will ever be able to convince myself i am 15' 9". I can however decide to reply to your post, or to ignore it.

True self awareness and free will are mutually exclusive of predestination. predestination implies an absolute outcome. free will and self awareness imply several different outcomes based on the choices we make.

"Perhaps we are talking semantics. If by supernatural you mean something unknown, that could become known in the future, and thus make it within the realm of physics, then I have no issue with "supernatural" statement. If however by supernatural, you mean a conscious, or all knowing, or all powerful being, then your statement is makin a leap and illogical."

We may be talking semantics, but i doubt it. By "supernatural" I mean anything, Godlike or not, that cannot be explained by the laws of physics (not just the ones we have figured out yet) I will grant you that i am making an assumption that no part of physics relies on chance. But considering that this is a popular assumption made by PhD physicist who are much more educated then you or I, i would say its probably an ok one.


"c) What's this decay you speak of? Are you referring to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that says the speed and position of atomic particles isn't predictable?"

The decay i was speaking of was radioactive decay. Radioactive decay is the propensity of an unstable atom to eject portions of its nucleus in order to create a more stable nucleus. Currently the only models that predict the rate of decay rely on a large number of nuclei that each have some probability (x) of undergoing decay within the next (y) years. However it is widely thought that the decay itself is not random. That is the very basic cliff notes. If you want to read a massive wall of text i will get out my notes from my last 3 years off college and regurgitate them for you.....not. but i will go a little more in depth if needed, or i bet Monte could.

"> So everything would still be predetermined

a) I did not state Heisenberg uncertainty principle was evidence of predestination or free will. I was asking for clarification.

b) I reject you above logic. There is no reason to believe there is predistination because particles have a postion and velocity. The two are not connected, and you conviently skipped the fact that it's position and velocity can not be known. Besides, ironically if it was evidence of predistination it would destroy your argument (because your argument that predistination goes against consciousness is silliness)"

Heisenberg principle states that a particle moving near the speed of light cannot have both it's position and velocity determined exactly, simultaneously. It does not say however that a particle does not have a definite and exact position and velocity simultaneously. So if all particles at time t=0+n have a definite position and velocity (which they most probably did), then without some force acting outside the laws of physics the interactions of all these particles would be entirely predetermined and there would be only one possible outcome in the entire universe. No matter how many times you repeated the big bang. If each time every particle shared the same properties as it did the time before, then your end result would be the same every single time.

And cookie, If you are going to argue with my about physics make sure you are right, and not just looking shit up on wiki and trying to regurgitate it to me like i don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

and sorry, that last one came off a little agressive

>Biteme I'm so going to pwn you here.

Only in your own mind.

>Your examples are entirely far fetched

Irrelevant.

>not applicable to the point of what i was saying

I think they are all relevant. For you to put conditions on what should be considered free will vs. not free will is completely arbritrary. Personally I find the belief in God as completely far fetched as my first two examples. What is not far fetched for you is far fetched for me.

Further, my last example is extremely relevant. The typical definition of free will in the context of Christianity is the freedom to choose to believe in Jesus as your lord and savior. I challenged you to do the reverse as evidence that I can not do what the thumpers claim I can so freely do.

>I can however decide to reply to your post, or to ignore it.

It is completely possible that your response was not a choice but yet an automatic programmatic action. Just because you believe you chose somethind does not make it so. Your actions can still be completely hard wired. Your thoughts can still be hard wired. You are confusing your belief you chose with the reality of whether you chose.

>True self awareness and free will are mutually exclusive of predestination.

Well I can't speak to "True" self awareness. What I can say is that there is no logical or evidentary reason to conclude that human self awareness is in conflict of a predistined universe (nor does it imply it).

All you are doing is asserting something. You aren't providing an reasoning behind it.

>By "supernatural" I mean anything, Godlike or not, that cannot be explained by the laws of physics

If you want to call it supernatural, ok. I only take issue with it being called God, or apply any characterstics to it, given that its unknown. Further once science explains it, it's no longer suprenatural.

>then without some force acting outside the laws of physics the interactions of all these particles would be entirely predetermined

There you go again with your leaping. Cite this conclusion and I might believe you.

>If you are going to argue with my about physics make sure you are right

I was right.

>not just looking shit up on wiki and trying to regurgitate it to me

I dont claim to be an expert (or close to it) but I did not just regurgitate to you. I learned about it in college and have read several books on it (albeit laymans books like schroenders cat and I did read them over 15 years ago).

>and sorry, that last one came off a little agressive

Not to worry, I understand it's frustrating to be wrong :)