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February 28th, 2011
08:27 AM ET
Fate vs. free will in 'The Adjustment Bureau'The new movie "The Adjustment Bureau" with Matt Damon aks whether our lives are pre-determined or if we have free will. CNN's Fredricka Whitfield speaks with the film's screenwriter and a pastor in this week's installment of Faces of Faith. Watch CNN Newsroom weekdays 9am to 3pm ET and weekends. For the latest from the CNN Newsroom click here.
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This is the dumbest thing I have read in a long time u r pretty much saying that u don't believe in god and to question his word is something I never want to b guilty of
I read a much wiser take on the whole think by a Rabbi Korobkin somewhere online.
Pilate thought he he had the power to free Jesus but Jesus told him he has no power at all unless it is given from above, Man is bound by sin and only Jesus can release him. If the Son shall set you free, you are free indeed.
Freewill means freedom to do or having the capacity or power to do what you will. Since man is bound already by his sinful nature, he cannot get out or free himself even how much he wills. There is free wish or free desire but total freewill there is none. We are always subject to some outside forces. If you say, "I will go to America," You are just wishing because unless the US embassy gives you a visa, you can never go even how much you say I will. Even if a man says, "i will go to heaven," still he cannot enter, because he has to be born again first into Gods spiritual family.
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What nonsense.
You have free will to beleive what you want to believe...don't you believe you do? True love is never forced, just given. But is it a gift if you never accept it? You are either a god or believe in the real God. It is your choice....free will. Choose Wisely! It is your life and death...no one can choose for you. In terms of if we have any control of our path? Yes, you just did. Did you choose wisely? You will live and die by your choice. How much more free will can you get? As for your next breath,,,only God knows. If you choose to end your own life (again free will) ....then ask God when you see him. Hope you will choose wisely. God really has been trying to make himself known to you since you choose to be your own god.
I just farted. Shoooooo : )
It either cracks God up or makes him cry to hear this nonsense. If you people are the masters of your own universe then: why are you ever sad? Why can't you get along with others? Why will you die someday? Why are you prideful, arrogant and every other attribute you don't like about yourself? So you're in charge – I'm not impressed. I prefer to believe in and worship a God who loves me, and like a loving parent, knows what I need and provides it for me. The rest of you can keep on believing that you are in charge, and see how that works for you.
People evolved to deal with situations in the wild – dealing with starvation, predators, natural disasters, etc. We also evolved to deal with other "wild" humans. There was no understanding of how anything worked back then. Now we have different issues to deal with. These issues are not well served by the ways of the past – we need science education to understand how to proceed. The emphasis on God, no matter what the religion, sets humanity back. We don't need it any longer. It is a selfish pursuit at best. Please get yourself to school and get a real education.
God does give us free will, and its what we do with that, that will judge which place we will end up in. God knows what he created and who we are so nothing is a suprise to him.
There is no god and there is no free will. This is so lame. Skeptics say they have free will but can not get past the scientific evidence that there is no free will and evangelicals claim there is free will but that go knows how everything is going to work out. You are both wrong. And I don't really care about your religion. There is no free will. The only way for there to be free will is if we are all mini gods and there is no god above us. So you atheists, there is no soul so there is no free will and evangelicals you are not mini gods so you have no free will. A third grader understands this logic. Why are both of your groups below the level of a third grader?
Quantum theory makes it even worse, or maybe better: if you exist in every possible universe in which your parents were born and met each other, there could be hundreds of thousands of you living slightly different lives. You took the road less traveled? Somewhere else you took the main road. When you die you will remember being all these people.
Hmmm Quantum theory and Fringe meet again!!!
Yes, either an atheist trying to justify free will or a theologian trying to justify free will. How sad. There is no free will no matter what smoke and mirrors you present.
Thinking as we evolve:
"Nothing is determined in advance: in nature there is chance and determinism; in the world of human activity there is possibility of free choices. Therefore the historical future is not known even to God, otherwise we and our history would be merely a puppet show in which God holds the strings. For God, too, history is an adventure, an open history for and of men and women." – Schillebeeckx
Sorry no spell check. change our to are Be well!
The past no more rolls up behind us like a carpet at our heels than the present crashes into the future like a wave onto a not yet existant shore. We need to think in many more dimensions than we currently do to understand the bucket called 'time' into which the general public throws all dimensions above the 3 we refer to as height, width and depth. The energies involved our simply too vast. As it is, these very words come from the past to your future read as the present. We clearly don't understand the realities of n-dimensionality. We are at least 5 dimensional beings now, or we could not even apprehend the concepts of 'time's' passage.
Accept your mortality! Accept the random chaos of the universe! Evolve people!!!
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I thought "You're All Alone" was a really original story when Fritz Leiber wrote it in the Fifties.
One more time, as per Father Edward Schillebeeckx, the famous contemporary, Catholic theologian who spent a greater part of his life studying the topic and writing books about it:
Church: The Human Story of God,
Crossroad, 1993, p.91 (softcover)
"Christians (et al) must give up a perverse, unhealthy and inhuman doctrine of predestination without in so doing making God the great scapegoat of history."
"Nothing is determined in advance: in nature there is chance and determinism; in the world of human activity there is possibility of free choices. Therefore the historical future is not known even to God, otherwise we and our history would be merely a puppet show in which God holds the strings. For God, too, history is an adventure, an open history for and of men and women."
i.e. No one, not even god (if one even exists) can prophesy since that would violate the inherent human gifts of Free Will and Future.----–
your credence to Father Edward Scissorhands scribble is just as narrow as those who quote a different author (or random biblical passage) to defend the idea of predeterminism.
I knew you were going to say that.
Words for the expanding universe:
"Nothing is determined in advance: in nature there is chance and determinism; in the world of human activity there is possibility of free choices. Therefore the historical future is not known even to God, otherwise we and our history would be merely a puppet show in which God holds the strings. For God, too, history is an adventure, an open history for and of men and women."- Schillebeeckx
The awesome thing about God, and that is why he is God, is because he knows whether we will choose him, he does not interfere with our decision. He knows the before, the now and the future.
Need to run spell check –
"The new movie "The Adjustment Bureau" with Matt Damon aks whether our lives are pre-determined or if we have free will."
The idea that some non-proven diety bestows a choise switch upon birth is a hard pill to swallow, for the thinking person. No wonder the fundies don't like science. This negates environment, how the brain works, capacity level, and interaction. The consequence of such belief is that all you have to do is beat a person until they decide to be good. Which species is this? Not the human.
Free-will was invented by the Monks in the Pyranees (sp) about 800 AD to why there is evil. It was to keep in line the ignorant mass. An earth quake in Spain about that time killing many almost sunk Christianity so the Monks came up with free will. "If those people killed had chosen god then they would be alive." Seems like we still have the ignorant mass.
Keith, I'm with you on the sciency thing bukt you need to work on the spelly thing. A diety may be a weight loss adviser, but not a deity. You can do better, you have a choice (not a choise).
I've been using the Atkins Diety and it seems to keep the demons at bay.
I disagree completely with the pastor guy they interview. We were given free will by God/the Creator, the option to CHOOSE which path we will take and therby be co-creators in our live and spiritual development & evolution. That is the whole point and purpose of our existence in this world.
You most certainly are not given freewill by "god". In fact "his" book explicitly forbids it. If you so much as have a fleeting thought questioning his supremacy or existence you go to the bad place for ever n ever. Didn't you read your own malarkey?
Amen to Arrrrggggh! We're just damned clever monkeys, capable of going to the stars or exterminating ourselves over disagreements about whether the Great Pumpkin or the Easter Bunny control our lives.
Actually, our wills are in bondage to sin and we cannot free ourselves. When we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Thats in I John, by the way. We have the will to choose yes, but it is not a free will. It is a will clouded by sin..which is why humans tend to make more choices that are painful and hurtful to others rather than "freely" choosing to do good.
Brian,There are many definitions of the term, just so we are all on the same page, what exactly do you mean by "Free Will"?
what's the difference between William, Free Will, and Free Willy?
I still don't understand why every story i see has religious comments to each his own but i mean really people! A man living in a fish and a man who saves every animal??? come on
Don't be takin' my name in vain.