Olger,

To engage in the pursuit of truth is to honestly consider the evidence, no matter where that leads.

I do my best to talk from evidence and when it is conjecture, I honestly admit that I don't know.

There are a number of believers on Club Adventist that engage in dialog in a very honest way. They admit when something doesn't make sense, they admit that their belief is based on their personal encounter with what they call god, and they comprehend what I am saying.

I have gained valuable insight into some of the weaknesses in my understanding on various ideas and topics.

On the other hand I have also encountered believers who engage in either personal accusations, make up things that I don't post, and often resort to sarcasm or implied threats when they run out of reasonable responses. If I weren't confident in who I am and what I am about, I would call that bullying.

I'll give you some friendly insight that you are free to accept or reject. In my world, the type of response that you have posted here simply provides more evidence of the weakness of the Christian world view. I say this because it is the more common response, rather than the exception.

This causes me to conclude that while there are some very fine Christian thinkers and believers, I suspect that it doesn't come from Christianity, but from who they are as individuals.

Consider a scientific view of free will - Neuroscience, Free WIll and Determinism... or An illusion called free will .

...and now the counter-point - Are the rumors of the death of free will greatly exagerated? .

Read first, then continue the discussion...

If our consciousness is in the brain, then we don't have free will. It is impossible within a binary system to have free will. In the brain, either the synapse is firing or it's not.

There are a number of problems with considering the brain as even the central logic center. The types of things that we do simultaneously as conscious beings would cause the brain to overheat because its clock rate for synapses would have to increase considerably to accomplish all the processing that we can do.

This includes facial recognition, sensory input for balance, calculating distance, pressure, and spacial awareness to just mention a few. I believe the brain is simply an interface.

The awareness of a self is a unique problem that is beyond algorithms as far as we know.

Interesting articles...it's all in the definitions that one......subscribes too!!

I only briefly read over the articles...aside from that when I look back over my life I don't think I have had much freewill, much more like an automaton, if I am using the word correctly. As the twig is bent...

The Spiritual Maturity stages really make sense to me with Stage 1 being our ultimately dulled mind in sin, but as light penetrates - and is accepted - intelligence, or choices, come.

I think I would ask, is choice and freewill the same?

There are those here who do not see the need for a god, a Power outside themselves. I do. I need that Power to first show me another way than what I have known, to shine that light in my darkened soul, then give me the power to accept and follow that light in spite of the darkness thrown across my path by the enemy in the form of people.

Often I have seen that "light" also in the form of people, but rejected some of it because "some people need to be knocked upside the head". The automaton in action, it had been internalized.