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Flimsy, I'm pretty sure it's not helpful to talk about my beliefs here (or to talk specifically about your beliefs either). After all it's not a case of which are *better*. The original thing I replied to was the cartoon stating the following things:

"Religion is fundamentally flawed in a staggering variety of ways, to the point that a curious child can bring down the entire framework of baloney with an innocent question."

"Such questions include

* Why is there evil?

* Who made god?

* Why should I trust you after that santa claus thing?"

"The idea that a being with immense powers exists, but never tampers with the world in a moticable way is an absurdly childish hypothetical scenario. It's "I'm not touching you" on a cosmic scale."

To back up these claims isn't it necessary to show that all potential gods are flawed?

Anyway if you want a starting point then I'm sure you'll have seen "Battlefield God" before: http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.htm
A quick couple of runs through it provided the following things which it didn't think were problematic:
TFFFFT FFTFFF FFFFF
TFFFFT FFTFTF FFFFF
There's probably plenty more, I just opted for the slackest god it allowed. Also the questions are all pretty extreme compared to yours. On top of this some people who it says have contradictory ideas don't agree with the reasoning.

As to the free will bit. Every other time randomness is used in science it's used to cover up something more complicated underneath (eg. the problem of determining whether a coin will land heads or tails). I think there's a strong argument to say that randomness is not an entity in itself.

If some entity outside our universe (eg. 'soul' or 'free will') actually had an effect on how our brains operated then the only way to model it would be probabilistically. Incedentally if there was a god who was influencing things in our universe then maybe they could do it by choosing the outcomes of the microscopic interactions?

The difference to many people between 'free will' and 'randomness' is that they think they have some afterlife to look forward to. They think the same part of them that's been making these decisions is going to continue to exist after they die. That's a personal difference though, not an observable one.

Anyway I actually have to go now otherwise I'll miss my flight! Hope this is helpful in some way.

Commodore wrote:zamros came so hard he forgot to put a question mark.

I laughed

TTTPPP wrote:Every other time randomness is used in science it's used to cover up something more complicated underneath (eg. the problem of determining whether a coin will land heads or tails). I think there's a strong argument to say that randomness is not an entity in itself.

Whether or not anything is truely random, the things like coin flipping which we describe as random but are actually just "complicated" are, when you get down to it, deterministic. Everything is either random or deterministic, there are no other options.

The difference to many people between 'free will' and 'randomness' is that they think they have some afterlife to look forward to. They think the same part of them that's been making these decisions is going to continue to exist after they die. That's a personal difference though, not an observable one.

No, you're talking about souls, which do not imply free will or vice versa.

How do souls make decisions? Randomly? Or deterministically? If it's some third way, what is it and how is it different from the first two?

And you still haven't defined your god. Do you worship a vague blur?

you're still having this conversation?

TTTPPP wrote:I think there's a strong argument to say that randomness is not an entity in itself.

mmm, I don't know about that. In the subject of physics, evidence has been found that suggests randomness is a fundamental property of all manner of things at the subatomic level.

Aplsos wrote:

Dr. Dos wrote:i hoarfed down all the dicks on my plate and i'm still hungry!!!!

Dr. Dos wrote:

Dr. Dos wrote:you're still having this conversation?

not anymore!