Seeing Things Differently -DanP the apologist excuse.

[Res Ipsa]

You already know my complaints about quoting A.I. as an authority in discussion or academics. That said, if you are going to use it, it's unethical to not include the exact question that you employed to harvest your response.

Indeed, his struggle to ask the question fallaciously in hopes the answer will affirm the view that free will is real, and that objections are merely problems the unbeliever has in accepting reality. However, while incomplete, I'd be happy with the answers his A.I. provided him, if he also took the time to respond to his A.I. humanist positions. It's not even clear he has taken the time to understand what his A.I. says.

But hold up -- his method seems to be to ask the A.I. a question, produce the result, and now the matter is settled. This would make sense if to your point, he's employing the fallacy of the complex question and thus, assumes the response isn't so much a position of humanists, but views humanists have that are on their face fallacious, which keep them from accepting the reality of free-will, hence there is nothing to respond to. Interesting.

MG has been repeatedly criticized for latching onto portions of books, articles, or schools of thought without taking the time to do the heavy lifting needed to understand what he is talking about. His use of A.I. as some kind of authoritative source is, in my opinion, simply an extension of what he’s been doing all along. It’s intellectual laziness at its worst.

MG has applied the snippet from Brooks’ book in a way that is 180 degrees opposite from what Brooks was writing about. MG’s posts here show no desire to learn about, let alone understand, anyone else’s point of view. He’s all about latching onto any piece of anything that he thinks he can wield as a weapon to defend his claims about God and the COJCOLDS.

[honorentheos]

A thought experiment: In Mormonism, a large number of Heavenly Father's spirit children rebelled against the plan that would send us all to mortality in order to prove ourselves. The leader of this rebellion was considered a favored son, a son of the morning as it were.

What factors played into their decisions?

[sock puppet]

A thought experiment: In Mormonism, a large number of Heavenly Father's spirit children rebelled against the plan that would send us all to mortality in order to prove ourselves. The leader of this rebellion was considered a favored son, a son of the morning as it were.

What factors played into their decisions?

Two come quickly to mind: Fear of individual failure (self-doubt) would perhaps be a factor. Desire that all of the spirits get to spend eternity with God, their maker (concern for fellow beings).

[MG 2.0]

Prior to writing this sentence, could you have chosen not to write it? Specifically, if your brain was in the exact same state it was just as you began to type, could you have chosen not to type it?

Of course I could have chosen not to type it. I can do otherwise no matter what state my brain is in because the body, including the brain, is a tabernacle for the spirit. When we die, our spirits leave our bodies and continue to live and think and make decisions. When demons possessed people in the New Testament, the evil spirits instilled totally different brain configurations. The brain configuration just follows what the spirit governing the body decides. The brain can be a limiting factor. Spencer with. Kimball taught that children have so much energy due to an adult spirit being crammed into such a little body. Likewise, the brain may not be developed enough for the adult spirit to form all the thoughts it could otherwise think, and that also goes for brain dysfunctions in adults.

thank you for the response.

I didn’t answer your question because it seems to me that the answer falls under the ‘limitations clause’ I have referred to at some length during this thread.

Within the constrictions of mortal life there will always be direct or indirect influences upon our agency to choose. Biological (which includes a whole slew of things), environmental, societal, epigenetics, etc., etc.

As far as your example involving demons, that’s an interesting thing to consider. That would obviously be an example of a severe limiting factor in being able to have full use of free will to choose. There are many different shades of gray between this example and those that seemingly have a larger capacity and opportunity to exercise free will.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

He’s perfectly happy to tell everyone that they have free will and that they are accountable to God for their choices. Yet, he takes offense at the thought that anyone has the temerity to question his claim that everyone has free will. It’s Mormonism 101 — only he has access to objective truth.

That’s where we do come to loggerheads. And it does sound as though I’m taking offense to those such as yourself that are either unwilling or unable to accept that there may be objective truth not subject to incomplete human understanding.

But I’m not.

It’s simply that I do think that it’s possible to access objective truth but only through divine intervention of one sort or another. And to some degree or another. I’ve gone into more detail on this earlier in the thread for those that are interested.

I have absolutely no problem with your questioning whether we have free will. None at all. You have the free will to do so, and I respect that.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

A thought experiment: In Mormonism, a large number of Heavenly Father's spirit children rebelled against the plan that would send us all to mortality in order to prove ourselves. The leader of this rebellion was considered a favored son, a son of the morning as it were.

What factors played into their decisions?

Some possibilities:

* Guaranteed salvation for all, which, on the surface, could appear more compassionate or safer. Some spirits, not fully comprehending the value and purpose of agency, were swayed by this alternative.

* Fear of failure under God’s plan. The mortal experience would be fraught with challenges, temptations, and the possibility of making mistakes. The prospect of a "guaranteed" salvation without the possibility of failing might have seemed attractive to those who were fearful or lacked confidence in their ability to choose wisely.

* A fundamental lack of faith or trust in Heavenly Father's plan and in the Atonement of Jesus Christ could have played a significant role.

But it’s hard to say with any exactness. We have little information to go on.

We have some interestingly parallel situation that have popped up in world history that have similar characteristics. Those leaders that have offered utopias through external controls resulting in lack of agency. We can see how those scenarios turned out and/or are showing indications of cracking in current situations throughout the world.

And yet, there are large swaths of humanity that seemingly fall for the lies that are given to them.

Gullibility?

Hey honor, I hope all is well in your life!

Regards,
MG

[honorentheos]

Hey honor, I hope all is well in your life!

Things are well, and I hope the same for you.

A thought experiment: In Mormonism, a large number of Heavenly Father's spirit children rebelled against the plan that would send us all to mortality in order to prove ourselves. The leader of this rebellion was considered a favored son, a son of the morning as it were.

What factors played into their decisions?

Two come quickly to mind: Fear of individual failure (self-doubt) would perhaps be a factor. Desire that all of the spirits get to spend eternity with God, their maker (concern for fellow beings).

Some possibilities:

* Guaranteed salvation for all, which, on the surface, could appear more compassionate or safer. Some spirits, not fully comprehending the value and purpose of agency, were swayed by this alternative.

* Fear of failure under God’s plan. The mortal experience would be fraught with challenges, temptations, and the possibility of making mistakes. The prospect of a "guaranteed" salvation without the possibility of failing might have seemed attractive to those who were fearful or lacked confidence in their ability to choose wisely.

* A fundamental lack of faith or trust in Heavenly Father's plan and in the Atonement of Jesus Christ could have played a significant role.

But it’s hard to say with any exactness. We have little information to go on.

We have some interestingly parallel situation that have popped up in world history that have similar characteristics. Those leaders that have offered utopias through external controls resulting in lack of agency. We can see how those scenarios turned out and/or are showing indications of cracking in current situations throughout the world.

And yet, there are large swaths of humanity that seemingly fall for the lies that are given to them.

Gullibility?

Contextualizing the pre-existance we are told we were living in the presence of God where the purpose of mortality was to put us in a different context where we needed to be separated from this presence in order to exercise agency. Yet 1/3 of our spiritual siblings failed and became fallen while being able to know for a fact God was God, and were experiencing the full love of God's divine presence.

Why?

Our first candidate is they lacked confidence/ feared they would fail. So where does this lack of self-confidence come from? They are clearly experiencing God's love directly being in his presence, have every reason to believe God wants the best for them. This *thing* that caused them to doubt their own capacity to succeed was powerful enough to risk everything on a chance at...what? So, where is it coming from?

Our second candidate is out of combined emotion and ignorance. They feel they need to intervene against God's plan to protect others. Again, this is in the context of their being in the presence of God and yet feeling as if they have to risk everything on a chance at...what? So, what would make sense as a powerful enough motive for a spiritual child in God's presence to doubt God's plan in this scenario?

Our third candidate is really a variation on the first two at their most fundamental: lack of faith or trust in God even though they are experiencing the presence of God the same as the other 2/3 who opted in to the plan. Where would this come from given they are exercising doubt in a context where they have perfect knowledge of God's existance and love?

[Gadianton]

MG, I don't think you understand the beating heart of libertarian free will. The minimal definition, which everyone agrees with, is that to have free will, you must have been able to act contrary to the way you did act.

You thought my post was about mitigating factors, it wasn't. I'm trying to help you understand what the definition of free will actually is, and that includes how Dan Peterson also understands it and all Mormon scholars understand it.

Read the emphasized text about about twenty times.

With your brain in the exact same state it was 20 minutes ago, in order to have free will, you must have been able to act contrary to the way you did act 20 minutes ago. You would unlikely say that a rocket launched 20 minutes ago could have taken any other course than it did, provided the state of every molecule in the world was exactly the same. Why would it be different for the brain? The brain is just a system of tissue and chemicals. The difference is that the brain is instructed to do what it does by the spirit. Am I right or wrong about that? It's the spirit that has free will, and not the brain. It's the spirit that changes the states of the brain, and so 20 minutes ago, the spirit could have changed a brain in state a moving to state b, to state x and now it moves to state y.

[IWMP]

A thought experiment: In Mormonism, a large number of Heavenly Father's spirit children rebelled against the plan that would send us all to mortality in order to prove ourselves. The leader of this rebellion was considered a favored son, a son of the morning as it were.

What factors played into their decisions?

Not sure how we can think experiment this. Do you have more information?

If we look at human nature (which I doubt is the same as in a possible pre existence), we can assume people followed for the sake of following. A lot of humans are sheep. They may have assumed, well he's the favourite so of course his choice will be the chosen one.

[IWMP]

Was God's plan already expressed? I had thought that - according to LDS - God had asked and Christ and Lucifer* came up with two plans and God chose Christ's?

* As we are led to believe.

What I wonder is, if you had two children that chose different options, would you cast out the other child? This gives a sense of judgement that isn't the God other Christians share. If heavenly father who loves everyone enough to give us salvation is able to cast out his favourite in what we are taught as being easily, just for wanting to return to him without consequences or choice, the how easy would it be to cast out us humans and lesser beings for much more sinister actions?