T-Bone
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Here’s the thing - there’s stuff in your thesis that are antithetical to PFAL / wierwille’s or Christian systematic theology - whether it’s your ideas or the authors you refer to. If I didn’t know better I’d say this thesis is from someone other than Mike of Grease Spot . However if indeed that is from you, Mike - it would validate my “thesis” that you really don’t ever know what you’re talking about - since your response here leads me to think you don’t really understand PFAL , the basic tenets of Christianity or free will and determinism since you - your mish-mash reflects an inability to see major differences among all 3 ideologies. Check quality control at the propaganda factory
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Yeah - I imagine a cult-mindset definition of like-mindedness is everyone in lockstep – no thinking allowed
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Just wanted to a few things you may have overlooked in your “book”. I find your treatment of this topic so odd because I’m somewhat familiar with your morphing positions on other stuff - I say that in all seriousness though I must add the mutations do not stray too far from what’s been said in PFAL and by wierwille on other occasions. That being said – I’ve noticed your Minimalistic Free Will thesis has not addressed the philosophy of religion angle. I thought that was a huge odd omission given your penchant for the past 20 years here in trying to make correlations to stuff you’ve gleaned from wierwille/PFAL stuff. ~ ~ ~ ~ Since this is an open forum – I wanted to add my two pennies to take up the slack for what’s missing in this discussion…I’ve reposted something I’ve shared on another thread What does God know and after that I posted a couple of excerpts from other sites where free will / determinism / God are discussed…enjoy My repost: I’ve been reading Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, 7th Edition and in a chapter that gets into divine knowledge and God’s sovereignty, this thread came to mind several times. A theory I never really considered when trying to understand God’s knowledge and sovereignty is that God could have voluntarily placed limits on Himself – to allow freedom for His created beings... Some points from the book that I like mulling over – and a lot of this gets into open theism and maybe some things one poster touched upon much earlier on this thread…anyway from the book: Classical theism has made a strong claim that God is timeless, in the sense of existing outside of time and sequence. Yet we praise God not because He is beyond time and change but because He works redemptively in time for our salvation. We may tend to think omnipotence as the power to determine everything - being coercive like a puppeteer. A monopoly on power is easy to manage. What’s much more difficult to govern is a universe with created beings that have the option – the freedom – to disobey. Omnipotence does not mean that nothing can go contrary to God’s will (like our sins do) but that God is able to deal with any circumstances that may arise. Though by nature God is omnipotent – in a sense, God can be vulnerable because of His decision to make a world filled with beings who have free will. The Creator of the universe has chosen to limit his power by delegating some to the created beings. American theologian, pastor and author Greg Boyd said “It takes far more self-confidence, far more wisdom, far more love and sensitivity to govern that which is personal and free than it does to govern that over which one has absolute control.” Just wanted to add this stuff as food for thought. Edited April 26 by T-Bone I knew ahead of time I would probably have to make a revision for clarity https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/15282-what-does-god-know/?do=findComment&comment=614117 end of my comment on What does God know thread ~ ~ ~ ~ Nonetheless, free will is taken as a form of truth in modern society. By making the right decisions, we can further ourselves. A wrong decision leads to consequences, most literally in the case of the judicial system, where crimes (except in the case of insanity) are considered as an exercise of free will, as it was a person who was able to choose either to commit or not to commit the crime. Is free will predetermined then? Yet, if we are so consciously sure of our ability to exercise free will, how can determinism override this idea? In some ways, determinism is problematic for us to consciously understand, and presents us with another problem: even if we make choices consciously using free will, what is to say that our free will itself is not predetermined? Let’s get a religious take From a religious point of view, there are many different variables that must be taken into account referring to determinism and free will. Any given person may show different beliefs whether it is monotheism, polytheism, atheism, or agnosticism. Beyond this, if a person believes in God, each person has different interpretations, such as: Who is God? What is God about? What is his role in humanity? We all have different responses to these questions and these responses will determine whether we believe in determinism or free will. End of excerpt From: https://www.psychreg.org/free-will-determinism/ ~ ~ ~ ~ Atheists use theological determinism to state that free will and God’s omniscience are at odds with one another, saying that God cannot be omniscient if we have free will. Yet their view conflates God’s omniscience with His control over us. He knows what we’ll do to respond to the pathway He set before us, but He does not control our actions and responses. We are free to make our own decisions as to how we carry out our lives and whether we choose to love and serve our Lord. Just as a parent plans aspects of his child’s life to foster success and excellence, the Lord plans for triumphs through tribulations in our lives to enhance, shape and cultivate our spiritual strengths. He knows what we could, would, and will do in various circumstances and He plans for the optimal pathway. This is known in the theological literature as Molinism. How does the Lord know what we will do in our lives? Revelation 1:8 tells us that He is concurrently in our past, present, and future. He is unbounded by linear time. “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty’” Revelation 1:8. He therefore sees and has seen all of the choices we will make over our lifetimes and has written the names of those who have finished strong and will finish strong in His Lamb’s Book of Life. One might posit that those who endorse beliefs in biological or theological determination may be influenced by some desire to absolve themselves from responsibility for their own decisions. That is a pity, because God holds us accountable. And the fact that we know we are externally held accountable should be a source of comfort as such knowledge likely leads to more moral decisions. End of excerpt From: https://christian-apologist.com/2020/02/23/free-will-vs-determinism/
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see what I mean
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Do you think making concessions will get people to buy your baloney? there’s nothing new to learn in your posts - it’s the same old baloney in different packaging. your “bottom up approach” is a vacuous concept…there’s nothing to it …ababababababababa… banana fana foe
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What nerve! it’s gotta be a lazy con artist who asks for help on editing his con
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Who cares
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I overlook nothing !
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One con artist’s squalor of lies could be another con artist’s lap of luxury
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Since what you have to say on a topic usually changes and gets contradictory leads me to think I’m right on what your # 1 goal really is - simply because if the actual content was so important and you actually KNEW what you were talking about . So to reiterate what I said your #1 goal appears to be convince others…con others…fool others…I don’t care what you call it - I just want to see you throw out the dirty bath water. It appears once you’re stymied by the pushback of others not buying your baloney - you move on
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My investigative motto is always “overlook nothing”
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Relax I’m not your stock boy to check on your inventory- your warehouse must be overstocked cuz you’re giving the dodgy stuff away
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wow wee wow - this entire post is full of dodge tactics - way to go ! can't make up my mind which emoticon to use
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Oh yeah – I know what you wrote in those chapters…my standard practice on Grease Spot Café is to copy and paste entire threads – including the hyperlinks to find each post – into Word docs on my computer, network drive and iCloud. It’s handy for self-referencing of course – that’s why I put a lot of sources, quirky phrasing in my posts – it makes a search much easier…and adding plus – I don’t have to be online to review threads. For instance, on this thread – so far I’ve got it on 65 pages of a Word doc. I already knew how many times you mentioned rudder when I asked that question. The reason I phrased that question the way I did was to see if you knew what you were talking about…sorry - it seems that you DO NOT. We used to check out someone’s story that way in high school. One of my friends is now an attorney…asking someone to repeat their story or elaborate on details is a quick an easy vetting process – and sometimes it might expose a bull$hit artist – if you know what I mean. ~ ~ ~ ~ Hey, I’ve got an old joke for this thread – maybe you’ve heard it: A top economist was talking with his driver on the way to a speaking engagement. The economist has been touring for years and was complaining about how boring it has become. Promoting his books, bragging about the same old projects and think tanks, answering the same old questions from the audience. The driver said, “I know what you mean – I’ve been hauling you around to all these gigs and listening to you speak for so long – I think I could get up there and give your talk.” The economist was hallway listening – being distracted by the heavy traffic and frequent stops – and then says “wait…what did you just say?” The driver replies, “aw it was nothing…just that I’ve heard your talk for so long I think I’ve got it memorized.” The economist leans forward – puts his hand on the driver’s shoulder “I’ve got a crazy idea, Mac – I bet most of the people in this town don’t know what I look like – let’s switch roles. You get up on stage, give the same old talk, answer the same old questions – and I’ll just sit in the back enjoying our little ruse.” So, they switch roles, and everything goes fine and without a hitch. But in the middle of the question-and-answer period someone in the audience asked a cost-effective related question that had never been asked before in all the years of their touring. The quick thinking driver – used to making snap decisions in traffic calmly replied “Ha, that’s an easy one – I bet my driver in the back of the auditorium could answer that – uhm, Mac would you please.”
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returning to the scene of the crime tampering with evidence
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Seems like I touched a nerve here I wasn’t thinking along the lines of you starting your own ministry or corporation – that’s way out of your league Hiding the fact that one does not know what they’re talking about – depending on the context, THAT could be a big problem
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It does seem like your number one goal is to convince people you know what you’re talking about
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Really dark stuff here…seems like you’re projecting – or mimicking what LCM would say…I never thought like that – and I was actually in the way corps and you were NOT
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It’s dishonest when you skirt around an issue or point of contention
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Yeah…not feeling good about your statements here either… you’re description is so awkwardly amateurish I’m almost embarrassed for you – thank goodness you’re playing to a small crowd... Did you Google to find out about how to sail a boat? It reads like something a 10-year-old would write…I think I can make correct guesses about how to sail than you can – and I’m not a sailor. But I mentioned stuff about flight cuz I read up a lot on The Wright Brothers – shared some of that here in regards to Napoleon Hill’s what the mind of man can conceive and believe he can achieve. I think wierwille probably mangled up Hill’s idea with his own law-of-believing nonsense. Hill’s “formula” articulated the normal process of how things get done…wierwille’s “formula” was magic. (FYI – I don’t believe in magic)…anyway The Wright Brothers read up on what other inventors were doing to make flight possible, the Wrights studied birds – how they changed the wing shape to control flight – the Wrights built their own wind tunnel and experimented with models – they studied Bernoulli’s Principle – the Lift Force – Newton’s law of lift caused by a flow deflection…probably the same idea with moving the sail – and the rudder too – you never mentioned anything about using the rudder on a sailboat. Sorry Mike - another disappointment here
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You know how I feel about copyright stuff, giving credit where credit is due, proper attribution and all that…if you’re posting here for feedback and critiques – I have to be honest with you…your responses remind me of wierwille’s indifference to plagiarism…I like Daniel Dennett – have 5 of his books – and watched some You Tubes with him…I thought some of your stuff had a mish-mash familiarity to it… I’m no writer – but I still dabble in music and art as a hobby now – and I always prided myself on being creative, original and a little weird but I can rattle off my “pedigree” of influences and my thinking process on anything I have created – I’ve shared that a few times here when I talked with some other musicians. I’m not a great musician or artist but all the creative people I’ve respected, I think one of their most admirable attributes is their genuineness in who they are and the respect they hold for who had inspired them… …sorry Mike – don’t mean to be a downer – but your “style” really turns me off… That’s all for now – maybe I'll share a few other things if I find the right words I'm trying to be on my best behavior - not trying to pi$$ you off - I want to have an open honest conversation - but I get frustrated cuz I feel you're hiding something - sorry I'm not smart enough to draw it out of you peace
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That’s such a sublime analogy, Mike – did you come up with that yourself? Also a question on the first sentence I bold reded : "When a sailboat goes against the wind, every step of every process is 100% deterministic." when a sailboat goes AGAINST the wind - wouldn't that be the opposite of deterministic? Something or someone has intervened - so as to enable the sailboat to go counter the force of the wind...kinda like the airplane overcomes the law of gravity through the principles of lift, thrust, aerodynamic design etc. ~ ~ ~ ~ also, on a side note are you thinking of publishing your work? If so, aren't you concerned about presenting it on an open forum, at the risk of someone stealing your work?
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Back to topic This is part of what I posted on another thread > here - I thought it’s an interesting distinction to make with wierwille’s the Word takes the place of the absent Christ… …an intellectual pursuit is substituted for developing a relationship with Jesus Christ and following in His footsteps; instead of WWJD = what would Jesus do? A TWI-follower’s subconscious motto tends to be WWwT = what would wierwille think? There’s little concern for imitating the selflessness and compassion of someone we think we know a lot about and so we don’t bother reading the Gospels because they’re not written to us anyway. Instead a TWI-follower will tend to frame a problem with what would wierwille think about that? When I was in-residence, we watched LCM’s video VP and Me and he explains at the beginning of his presidency he would visualize how wierwille would handle an issue. See a previous post on this thread > here …although if you go to the link I gave above – you’ll see how I developed this idea further
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that's the last straw
