What's so great about FREE WILL ?

[Ideal Singh]

Taken...

There've been lots of debates already about free will, whether it exists,

and whether we really have it.

My question is a slightly different one: Suppose we do have some kind of libertarian-type free will. What's so great about it? Why is it worth wanting?

I approached this question from the angle of the problem of evil, namely:

(1) There is evil in the world.

(2) An omnipotent and good God would eliminate evil if he existed.

(3) Therefore, no omnipotent and good God exists.

The standard theist's reply is: God exists and is omnipotent and good, but he allows evil because it's logically necessary for free will. Giving humans the freedom to choose right or wrong is a greater good in itself than all the evil that's generated. End of story.

But I wonder about this. Why would God allow all the horrendous suffering in the world just so we can have free will? What's so great about free will? Why does God value it so much?

Tt would be possible for everyone to have free will and still always choose the right thing (hence, mentioning free will is no solution to the problem of evil after all, since God could have given free will and still do without evil). But theists disagree, claiming that sometimes making the wrong choice is logically necessary for us to have free will.

Suppose the theists are right. Free will consists, then, solely in the propensity to make the wrong choice. What on earth can the value be in that?! Faced with the options of (1) a morally perfect world or (2) a world containing free will and evil, why would God choose the latter?

[Guest]

I tink its also 2 do wid Yig & Yag

[Guest Javanmard]

ama et fac quod vis! St Augustinus

Mod's Note: English Please

[tSingh]

Gurfateh

Ah the seeming paradox of God - karma and hukam

Personally I don't believe in evil, only haumai and avidya. This causes people to act in a way people term 'evil'. Why do they? Because of karma. However, the free will is that we can always escape this situation by becoming brahm-gyani or having tat vidya. When we make that effort then the hukam aspect is involved, as we evolve and start to awaken from our deep sleep.

Also bear in mind that Paramatma is 'aad such, jugaad sach, hai bhi sach, nanak hosi bhi sach'; beyond time. Therefore karma and hukam can co-exist depending on your perspective. God is beyond time therefore, all karma is hukam.

[Ideal Singh]

Gurfateh

Ah the seeming paradox of God - karma and hukam

Personally I don't believe in evil, only haumai and avidya. This causes people to act in a way people term 'evil'. Why do they? Because of karma. However, the free will is that we can always escape this situation by becoming brahm-gyani or having tat vidya. When we make that effort then the hukam aspect is involved, as we evolve and start to awaken from our deep sleep.

Also bear in mind that Paramatma is 'aad such, jugaad sach, hai bhi sach, nanak hosi bhi sach'; beyond time. Therefore karma and hukam can co-exist depending on your perspective. God is beyond time therefore, all karma is hukam.

You mean to say that itz God will who makez us do the horroundous, cruel thingz... We are not responsible for our Karmaz then... And there is no such thing as freewill... ? :roll:

Then why was there felt a need by our Guruz to make such huge effortz to change the rotton physche of the ordinary people... They would have let them do what they were doing at that time... What was the need to change the path being followed by likez of koda rakhshah, vali kandhari etc... they were doing accrding to what God had instructed them to...

I am some what confused... :roll:

[Hari]

Everything will go back to where everything (and every non-thing?) came from, namely Vahiguru, That(?).

It is not only Vahiguru who is playing, we are too.We are His children, and are playing too.

Sukh and dukh does not touch you really.Nothing can touch the inner man.

[jsb]

see Ideal... the problem is that our elders teach us that if something good happens, it's cuzza God... and if something bad happens, then.. its your fault

fact is, it is your fault.whether it's good or bad, it's cuzza you...

hence karma....

[Pheena]

Veer Ideal Singh...i hope this answers your question:

You ask: Does God exist? How can there be so much evil and corruption in the world if God exists?

God is a mythical word, a mumbo-jumbo word that is the invention of the priesthood. Actually, to ask whether God exists is absurd. For those who know, God is existence, or existence is God.

Things exist, not God. A chair exists because a chair can go into nonexistence. To say that the chair exists is meaningful because its nonexistence is possible.

God is existence, the very isness. When we say God exists we create something out of the word God, then God becomes a thing. But God is not a thing, nor is God a person. That is why you cannot make him responsible for anything. Responsibility only comes when there is a personality, when there is someone who can be responsible.

God is not a person, he is pure existence. The word is misleading because the word personifies. It is better to use the word existence. The totality of existence is God.

So it cannot be asked whether God exists. That is like asking whether existence exists. Put this way—whether existence exists—the question becomes absurd. Obviously existence exists; there is no question about it. The question cannot even exist if there is no existence, nor can the questioner.

I would like to make it clear that when I say God, I mean existence as such. God is not a thing among other things, God is total thingness. To say that the table exists is the same as saying that the table is God. To say that you exist is the same as saying that you are God. God is the existence. God is isness, the quality of isness, the quality of existence

A Muslim friend came to visit me. This was his question too. He said, "The biggest question I feel is that if God is, then why is the world so evil?" He is right, because there can be no relationship between God and evil. How can there be?

I told him, "Let us remove all evil from the world for a moment. Can you visualize what the world will be like then?" The moment you remove evil, the good also disappears from the scene. Good cannot exist on its own. It is because of evil that good exists. Remove darkness and light disappears together with it. Light exists because of darkness. Remove the cold, and the heat is automatically lost. Heat and cold are different variations of the same thing. If we try to remove death, life too will be lost. If there is no death, how can life be? Or, if there is no life, how can death be?

The universe exists with the help of polar opposites. The world's existence is brought about by the music between opposites. If the opposite is removed, both are removed. Remove the male, and the female is lost. Remove old age, and youth is lost. The young person always wishes to prolong his youth because he does not know that youth and old age are so closely combined that if one is removed, the other is lost. We all wish ugliness to be removed from the world; but if ugliness is lost, beauty will also disappear. If you wish for a world without ugliness, be prepared to face a world where nothing is beautiful.

I told my friend, "If you wish for a world where evil is banned, good will flee from such a place immediately. Then this world will be a big prison house; because where there is no freedom to do evil, there can be no freedom at all.

In fact, the word "freedom" contains the freedom to do evil also. If a man is told that he is free only to be good, what meaning does such a freedom convey? This freedom has no meaning. Rather, it implies bondage. It would be proper to say; you are condemned to be good—not free to be good. When we tell a person he is free to be good, the freedom to be evil enters along with the freedom to be good. God is the totality and yet he does not control anything. This means that God creates, but He creates freedom.

A man is free to be good and free to be bad—as bad as he wishes—when God is the Lord of everything. This is because true freedom exists only if there is freedom to do what one wishes, be it good or bad. When no such freedom exists, man is not man but a machine which does whatever it is made to do because it is insentient.

Man is sentient; he possesses consciousness. Consciousness is not possible without freedom. way204

For tantra, everything is holy.

One Christian missionary was with me a few days ago and he said, "God created the world."

So I asked him, "Who created sin?"

He said, "The devil."

Then I asked him, "Who created the devil?"

Then he was at a loss. He said, "Of course, God created the devil."

The devil creates sin and God creates the devil. Then who is the real sinner—the devil or God? But the dualist conception always leads to such absurdities. For tantra God and the devil are not two. Really, for tantra there is nothing that can be called "devil", everything is divine, everything is holy. And this seems to be the right standpoint, the deepest. If anything is unholy in this world, from where does it come and how can it be? vbt02

People come and ask me whether their fate is determined. They are asking whether they are so important, so significant for this universe that their fate must be determined beforehand. "What is my purpose?" they ask. "Why was I created?" This childhood nonsense that you are the center creates these questions like, "For what purpose am I created?"

You are not created for any purpose. And it is good that you are not created for any purpose; otherwise you would be a machine. A machine is created for some purpose. Man is not created for some purpose, for something—no! Man is just the outflowing, overflowing creation. Everything simply is. Flowers are there and stars are there and you are there. Everything is just an overflowing, a joy, a celebration of existence without any purpose….

Try to understand it. Because our minds are fixed, we take things as theories, not as devices. So many times people come to me and say, "One day you said this is right, and another day you said that is right, and both cannot be right." Of course both cannot be right, but no one is saying that both are right. I am not concerned at all with which is right and which is wrong. I am only concerned with which device works.