Re: If free will is so prevalent, then why do oracles work?

Kat on Thu May 21, 2009 11:35 am

Stanze wrote:Hi Kat

I had the same thought as you. Please, I'm not an expert here, but the teachings of Alan Kardec I don't agree with the teachings of Alan Kardec say that your soul is in constant development. No soul can go down in the scale and at the most you are here to stay the same or to grow. The theory is that you chose the challenge. And the challenge could also be meant to the people surrounding you. For instance, maybe a child that comes to suffer in the hands of someone is meant to be there to give the "let's call bad person" a chance to exercise its free will and be good instead of bad. "Well see honey. These bad things are done to you because you chose to incarnate in this life to be abused in order to allow the bad people a chance to exercise their free will"... or how about I explain to the mother of the 9 month old baby that was raped and killed when she comes for counselling that she should console herself with the fact that her baby chose to suffer this horrible thing because she wanted the man who did it to be able to exercise his free will! And... if we see it in the eyes of the reincarnation, this poor child could be Hitler himself... What point would there be in Hitler coming back as a child, to suffer at the hands of an abuser if he doesn't know he was Hitler? I'm just guessing, not affirming anything, please

Also, people in nood call the attention of people that wants to help. Maybe there's a purpose on all this circle and process. Look at this, sometimes we see mental illness children as people with a terrible fate. I have never seen them as such, but anyway...But lots of them teach a lesson to the ones surrounding them and some of them are more wise than normal people. Children with intellectual and physical challenges are a whole different ball game from children that are abused. I don't believe they chose to incarnate with those challenges either.

BTW. Define normal.

Reincarnation theory says we choose an objective and a challenge when we accept on coming back to this world (or even other worlds) but we also come with the power of the free will and the choices. We have the challenge, we can succumb to it or we can overcome it. And sometimes we have chosen to be just passive. That's what I think about it.

So again...You're saying that we all chose our lives before we were born. Therefore rapists, murderers, paedophiles and the suchlike have a valid excuse for what they do because it was predestined and if you believe that some choose to incarnate to be abused in order to learn lessons or teach lessons, then you must believe that others choose to incarnate as abusers. If we chose our lives before we were born, then why do we punish those who break the laws. They can't help being what they are, after all, it's predetermined.

Stanze

wood on Thu May 21, 2009 11:39 am

Chanah wrote:You spend a lot of time cursing fate cos you can't father a child? Or maybe you don't have the physical stamina to win a marathon, or the musical genius to be a Mozart? If I can't learn to play a piano, for whatever reason, it's makes no difference whether I'm a genius or not.

The temperament that you're born with, or do you believe we come into the world tabula rasa? Definatly blank slate.

What kinds of fate can be overcome by knowledge? Being born a slave in a starving and war-torn country? Genetic fatal illness? No fate, just odds.

Not meant as provocation. I'm still trying to find the line where people start to choke on the concept.

Back to colosal waste of time.

You seem to be arguing from a Cicero viewpoint, Chrysippus seems to be mine.

Stanze on Thu May 21, 2009 11:52 am

Kath, as I said, I'm not expert in any theory. I would like to know your point of view about people that are bad. Are they bad by nature? I would like first to understand how do you explain bad acts IF we are all considered "sons of God"... or are some of us "sons of Evil"? What in your opinion, make ones bad, others good, others victims, and others passive?

Please I'm not going against you or your thoughts I just want to know them so I can understand your point of view. So far, I can only see what you don't believe.

What I meant as "normal" was what the majority of the society defines as normal, not necessarily meant to be my own opinion. I also don't think a handicap child is "unnormal" but we know that the majority of the people see it this way, andI used this concept as example, as I could have used any other one.

Stanze

fennario on Thu May 21, 2009 12:00 pm

Kapherus wrote:Debating the ethics of Metaphysical philosophy is like debating religion or politics-- everyone has strong feelings and opinions based on their own belief systems, and no amount of arguing is going to shake anyone's beliefs or change anyone's mind.

Once in awhile, it happens.
Chip away, chip away. Laughing

Having said that, I think this kind of discussion has it's place because it helps us to define what we do believe regarding freewill VS destiny or fate, and how oracles function within the context of these concepts. I'm not trying to persuade or enlighten here. I just want to share my own ideas about how I reconcile the Law of Attraction with the horrors of this world...

I personally do believe that we create our experiences through our thoughts and feelings and belief systems. I've seen the concrete affects too often in my own life and in the lives of people I know to ever believe otherwise.

I don't know about creating experiences themselves. We can create HOW we experience an event, sometimes. But we don't create the event. Events are composite and require people, objects, etc. We don't create all those, obviously.

But I don't think it's as simple as saying that victims are victimized because they emit negative thoughts and feelings that attract bad experiences into their lives.

Thank you.

I believe in reincarnation, and I believe that we each enter this world with an agenda. I'm not sure if the purpose of this cosmic blueprint is simply to allow us to experience everything that physical existence has to offer, or if there is a more structured plan, and specific "lessons" that must be faced and mastered. Regardless, If it is our agenda to suffer the role of the victim in this life--whether simply to experience victimization. or to learn to overcome the need to feel victimized--we will attract experiences in which we are victimized.

Reincarnation is an Eastern concept, for the most part, or at least the concept is developed to the highest degree there. I think we probably reincarnate, too. There's no way of knowing. Even the Dalai Lama, when asked, laughed and said, "I don't know - I guess I'll find out!" Laughing

The original concept is nothing like the Western Sylvia Browne idea of choosing the lessons you want and going off to be born. In the Bardo Thodol, everyone is said to awaken from death at the highest level of undifferentiated consciousness. Everyone. The thing is, you can't hold that, so you slip down a level and begin to have visionary experiences. You see Buddhas in their peaceful aspects, such bliss as you are scared to accept, you see them in fearsome wrathful aspects, and if you can't hang on anyplace, you fall, fall, fall until you reach the level of the womb and rebirth. So it's more a mind power thing. The "lesson" here is to use your human life to strengthen your practice so you get strong enough not to have to come back, not to be born and suffer terrible things. Life is loss, loss, loss because that's the nature of time and space. It can't be any other way, so from the Buddhist view, you try to get off the wheel.

It's ironic that a lot of the people who push the ideas of karma and rebirth as lessons, rewards and punishments are also the ones who say "As above, so below." It's random and nonsensical here, so by that reasoning, well....

I also believe in group or racial karma-- that groups of people are incarnated together to play out a specific roles in the development of the human race.

That could be. I think it's a lot more complex than "learning lessons", though.

Years ago when I was a kid, I read an interesting book about racial karma that had a profound affect on the development of my own metaphysical belief system. Over the years I've tried to locate a copy of the book, but I could never remember the title or author. I believe the book was written by a female psychologist who had worked with concentration camp survivors through hypnosis.

The author proposed the theory that the victims of the Holocaust had chosen their roles in order to balance out the racial karma created during the Roman persecution of the early Christians. In a nutshell she proposed that the souls who persecuted the early Christians chose to take on the suffering of the Holocaust at the hands of those early Christians who came back to fulfill the roles of the Nazi victimizers.

No Jew on this planet will tell you that.

No REAL human on this planet will tell you that.

I hope the ADL went after her. I hope she is still living so she can be prosecuted for hate crimes.

http://www.mengele.dk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele

She needs INTENSIVE sensitivity training. She needs to meditate constantly on the deeds of miscreants like Dr. Mengele. She needs to see photos and hear stories of what went on there until it gets into that thick, ignorant sick mind of hers. She needs to imagine him shooting dye in HER kids' eyes, sewing her kids together, castrating them.

If I saw somebody doing what he did to these kids, even if they were just doing it to a DOG, they would have to kill me. I would do everything in my power to rip their face off their skull with my hands.

This is the EXACTLY kind of garbage I'm talking about: "Oh, the
Holocaust was no big deal - those were bad old Romans in Jewish bodies
and they wanted to go through unimaginable suffering in order to purge
their sins."

That woman is so beyond f-ing pathetic.
She needs to look real long and hard in the mirror and see what she has become.
And in an act of kindness on my part,I will say that I really hope that she does not like what she sees. I hope it disgusts her even a fraction as much as that little theory of hers disgusted me. I hope she learns to walk on her hind legs and get her hairy knuckles off the ground and be a Human Being. As coldhearted as it sounds,I'd have no problem stepping over her while she was lying in a gutter begging me for change.

I might even tell her it was FREE WILL and RACIAL KARMA. She how she likes hearing THAT.

Even after all these years, I'm not sure I completely buy into the theory.

Om Tare, I hope not.

There are obvious holes in the argument-- such as the huge discrepancy in the number of victims in each account.

That's the least of them.

But the idea of group or racial karma is still fascinating to me, and I believe it can go a long way toward reconciling the distance between freewill and a pre-ordained destiny.

Whatever genocide is, it's not "free will". I'm not going to waste my energy trying to reconcile it to that.

Of course no human personality would consciously chooses to take on that kind of suffering, but I have to believe that on some level there is a choice made-- otherwise freewill is an illusion, and fate is either completely random, or determined by a cruel and unjust god.

The only "choices" involved are horrible ones, like people who get into prostitution in order not to starve. The "choice" available to these people was "die now and be done with it" or "hang on and hope for escape or rescue, but suffer horribly in the interim and probably die in the camp anyway."

I've seen the universal laws work often enough in my own experience to know in my heart that the Universe is neither random nor cruel.

???

Nothing can happen without some randomness in the mix! Everything comes from chaos. Science and religion are bumping into this same truth. Here's an interesting bit on the rise and fall of societies from Rev. Vincent Verthaine:

"There is also the widespread notion of the five stages, which is
another expression of the ubiquitous 'law of fives' in Discordian
thought. This idea is much like the 'aeonics' idea expressed within
Chaos Magic (and they probably got the idea from us). The five stages
are used to help understand and explain socio-historical developments.
The First stage is Chaos, in which everything is in its natural
state. Order and disorder are in dynamic balance. Organization occurs
naturally. Authoritarian people hate this stage. It is like Hegel's
thesis. It is the start and finish of every society. (Corresponding
deity = Eris.) The second stage is Discord, which starts with
the appearance of ruling classes and governance. Authority becomes the
main organizer of systems and of beliefs. It is Hegel's antithesis. The
underclasses discover that its interests are not the same as the
rulers. Society is thus divided. The third stage is Confusion,
in which some attempt is made to restore balance or achieve a
synthesis. It is an attempt to restore nature through unnatural means.
Intuition is mistrusted. People try to break free of authoritarian
ideas by using those same ideas. Every revolution becomes a mirror of
what it overthrows. The forth stage is Bureaucracy, what we
call the 'parenthesis' that Hegel missed, in which the synthesis does
not reconcile the opposites. Society is exhausted, while appearing to
be thriving. Ideas and rules have become more important than the people
who create them. Superior people are ruled by idiocy. The fifth stage
is the Aftermath, and represents the drift back to chaos. It is
a transitional period where many people, in desperation or hope, turn
to intuition and magic in order to rediscover their natures.
Bureaucracy has collapsed under its own weight of intellectual ideas
and 'paperwork'."

And nature can be VERY cruel and harsh, people can be appalling beyond that - aren't people and nature part of the Universe? Or is the Universe some imaginary all-good bubble floating in space someplace far away?

In a nutshell, everything that I've experienced in working with clients over the years confirms for me that although we come into this life with an agenda or a plan,

I'm more inclined to go with Padmasambhava and think I fell here because I was lazy. Laughing

. Some things seem pre-ordained, I don't know why. Planets are as good an explanation as any. I've experienced a lot of poverty and know that there are no further lessons to be learned there, it just repeats. I've had some horrible events that I couldn't stop any more than I could stop an oncoming train. Chanah did a horary and found a very nasty fixed star causing a lot of the problems. I'd like to give some explanation more logical and rational than astrology, but there isn't one. Certainly not "free will".

but we have the freewill to create our lives within that framework Fortunetelling works because the oracle has the ability to divine both the agenda and the potential to make the absolute best with what we have to work with. Magic works (whatever approach you choose to take-- ceremonial, sorcery, wicca, voudoun, creative visualization, etc.) because we have the ability to create our experiences within the framework of that agenda.

For me it's all about concrete results. I've never been one to jump on the bandwagon or allow myself to be strung along by false hopes and promises. I've spent my life working with the cards because they consistently work for me. I practice my own brand of magic because I get tangible results. That's my reality, but it may not be yours.

Cards do work. They're not perfect, but they do work. I don't know how it happens, I expect it's a mix: there's some illusion involved, certainly, but there's also wisdom in everything if you can only see it and cards are no different.

Kat on Thu May 21, 2009 12:17 pm

Stanze wrote:Kath, as I said, I'm not expert in any theory. I would like to know your point of view about people that are bad. Are they bad by nature?That would infer that they are born bad and that would be your theory not mine. I believe that babies are born neither bad nor good. Life experience is what shapes them. I would like first to understand how do you explain bad acts IF we are all considered "sons of God"... or are some of us "sons of Evil"? Excuse me. I never said I was Christian or in fact religious at all. I don't believe in "sons of God" and "sons of evil"What in your opinion, make ones bad, others good, others victims, and others passive? Their life experiences... from the day they were conceived.

Please I'm not going against you or your thoughts I just want to know them so I can understand your point of view. So far, I can only see what you don't believe. Well I certainly don't believe in reincarnation as some propose it to be.

What I meant as "normal" was what the majority of the society defines as normal, not necessarily meant to be my own opinion. I also don't think a handicap child is "unnormal" but we know that the majority of the people see it this way, andI used this concept as example, as I could have used any other one.

Stanze

Stanze on Thu May 21, 2009 12:36 pm

Hi Kat

Kat wrote: Their life experiences... from the day they were conceived.

So in your opinion life experiences make people bad or good? So if someone has a bad experience in life they will be bad? Or can they choose to overcome the tragedy and be good anyway? What then, behind the life experiences, make some still be good and some still be bad, having bad and/or good experiences?

I do think that character has a big rol here, and character is something that you are - in a certain way - born with. The surroundings can influence you, shape you and even mold you, depending on your character.

Stanze

wood on Thu May 21, 2009 12:41 pm

I can learn to be bad or good. Free will allows me to choose which. I make the choice based on the knowledge I have at the time.

fennario on Thu May 21, 2009 12:46 pm

wood wrote:I can learn to be bad or good. Free will allows me to choose which. I make the choice based on the knowledge I have at the time.

But Wood, the road to hell and all that! Laughing

A choice is not a guarantee. Srsly.

Kat on Thu May 21, 2009 12:48 pm

Stanze wrote:Hi Kat

Kat wrote: Their life experiences... from the day they were conceived.

So in your opinion life experiences make people bad or good? So if someone has a bad experience in life they will be bad? No Stanze. I'm sure you know that's not what I meant. Or can they choose to overcome the tragedy and be good anyway? What then, behind the life experiences, make some still be good and some still be bad, having bad and/or good experiences? That's a very simplistic way of looking a very complex subject. It's all the life experiences. I'm not just talking about one particular thing that happened.
I do think that character has a big rol here, and character is something that you are - in a certain way - born with. The surroundings can influence you, shape you and even mold you, depending on your character. Your surroundings, your life experiences and other things are what shape your character. You're not born with a certain type of character. You're back to saying that your character... "for good or evil... is predetermined before you're born.

Stanze

Stanze on Thu May 21, 2009 12:50 pm

Hi fenn

Many interesting thoughts in this thread and I couldn't avoid to put my hands on it Very Happy

fennario wrote:I don't know about creating experiences themselves. We can create HOW we experience an event, sometimes. But we don't create the event. Events are composite and require people, objects, etc. We don't create all those, obviously.

Well, I have one strange experience in my life that I would call "the creation of an object, or an event". When I was a kid still (around 1973), I loved some movies on TV (black and white still, at least in my city) and I wished on that time that I could have a way of recording that films to see them any time I want. I wished that so much that I used to recorded the sounds of the movies in a cassette just to "hear" the movie. In 1973 I was imagining that one day I would record my movies. The Betamax video cassete was only created in 1975 and I had my first one, from Phillips some years later. Of course I didn't create that and of course the invention was not meant exclusively to me but I managed to have mine and I do believe I've "attracted it" into my existence, in a way I don't dare to explain.

fennario wrote:If I saw somebody doing what he did to these kids, even if they were just doing it to a DOG, they would have to kill me. I would do everything in my power to rip their face off their skull with my hands.

I've always questioned myself if the jews that were there could/would have done the same thing and if yes, why haven't they fight against that situation as the ones in the Varsovia ghetto?

Stanze

wood on Thu May 21, 2009 12:53 pm

fennario wrote:
wood wrote:I can learn to be bad or good. Free will allows me to choose which. I make the choice based on the knowledge I have at the time.

But Wood, the road to hell and all that!
I do not have absolute knowledge of that particular place. Yet!
A choice is not a guarantee. Srsly.

Neither choice nor knowledge guaratees anything. I might not have the right knowledge to make the correct choice therefore I might be going to hell!

Chanah on Thu May 21, 2009 12:56 pm

Stanze wrote:
I've always questioned myself if the jews that were there could/would have done the same thing and if yes, why haven't they fight against that situation as the ones in the Varsovia ghetto?

We did fight against it, Stanze. Warsaw was just the example the world heard about.

But as Franz Kafka wrote - when it's you against the world, bet on the world. And that was pretty much the situation the Jews were in in WWII.

Stanze on Thu May 21, 2009 12:56 pm

Kat wrote:
So in your opinion life experiences make people bad or good? So if someone has a bad experience in life they will be bad? No Stanze. I'm sure you know that's not what I meant. -

I've asked that because no, I haven't understand what you said.

Kat wrote:
Your surroundings, your life experiences and other things are what shape your character. You're not born with a certain type of character. You're back to saying that your character... "for good or evil... is predetermined before you're born.

In a certain way, yes. I do think we don't come as completely blank and I do think that the other things you mention, apart from surroundings, are also the choices you make in life (free will). But of course I do respect your opinion and your way of thinking, please don't misunderstand me.

thumbs up

Stanze

midnight-dawn on Thu May 21, 2009 12:59 pm

Kat wrote:
Stanze wrote:Hi Ka

Reincarnation theory says we choose an objective and a challenge when we accept on coming back to this world (or even other worlds) but we also come with the power of the free will and the choices. We have the challenge, we can succumb to it or we can overcome it. And sometimes we have chosen to be just passive. That's what I think about it.

So again...You're saying that we all chose our lives before we were born. Therefore rapists, murderers, paedophiles and the suchlike have a valid excuse for what they do because it was predestined and if you believe that some choose to incarnate to be abused in order to learn lessons or teach lessons, then you must believe that others choose to incarnate as abusers. If we chose our lives before we were born, then why do we punish those who break the laws. They can't help being what they are, after all, it's predetermined.
I don't want to get in the middle of this at all, because I know nothing, but just a theory on Stanze and Kat's statements above.
Maybe if they do accept the challenge or objective as Stanze says, when they come back, maybe that challenge and "free will and choice" is the challenge NOT to rape, murder or otherwise inflict harm on someone else. Maybe that is their test, and obviously failed miserably. And if the theory of group karma is in place, than these victims were there to Help the victomizer? They were the "bait" so to speak? Like putting candy on a plate and using your will power not to touch it. Maybe they did make that pack "up there" to help each other out. Maybe one reincarnated life one of them is the "victim" and then the next reincarnated life they switch roles and the other one becomes the "victim" Trying to help each other be a better person on earth, learning from each incarnation? Who knows how many people actually pass the test, who made the choice not to rape, murder, abuse, etc.? We will never really know.
They managed their control, used their free will of choice?? Maybe the other "victim" helped them learn what they were suppose to?
Like I said, I know nothing, so don't beat me up, just passing some random thoughts on the subject.

Stanze

fennario on Thu May 21, 2009 12:59 pm

Stanze wrote:
I've always questioned myself if the jews that were there could/would have done the same thing and if yes, why haven't they fight against that situation as the ones in the Varsovia ghetto?

Stanze:
There were obviously many not in a position to fight, or they would have. Seriously.
Please think.