On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 Russell Standish <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I do claim to know what I mean by "free will", Well maybe you do know what free will means but the trouble is you are unable to communicate that understanding to any of your fellow human beings and certainly not to me. That's the trouble with mystical experiences, even if they really do give you a deeper understanding of the world and are not just caused by indigestion, that new understanding helps only you and nobody else. I've never had a mystical experience but if I ever do I intend to keep quiet about it for that very reason. > > I also note that there tends to be no agreement on the term, I will agree on any meaning of the term provided it is self consistent and non-circular and provided you don't complain when I use nothing but that definition and pure logic to take you to places you may not want to go, like endowing Roulette Wheels with free will. > > I believe in Spinoza's god. > I don't. When somebody says "I believe in Spinoza's god" it just means there is so much mystery complexity and beauty in the universe that it causes me to feel a sense of awe. I'm awed by the universe too but that is so many light years away from the original meaning of "God" that I believe both Spinoza and Einstein blundered in using the same word for both very different things; it just invites misunderstanding, it virtually begs for it. I think the problem is that even many hardcore atheists have a residual feeling that if you don't believe in something called G-O-D then you're somehow a morally bad person, so they redefine the word "God" in such a way as to make it impossible for anyone to disbelieve in it. For some reason I just don't have as much affection for that particular word as most people, perhaps because no other word has caused more human misery or ignorance. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
