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

fennario wrote:Nothing would change their minds, it would have to go through the legislature. Not a choice. Could have gotten some street drugs but they'd have locked me up and taken the kids. Not a choice. Pain was not a choice, I made repeated efforts to avoid it. Checkmate, yuo is pwnd.

The pain was their choice based on their free will dominating yours due to a lack of knowledge on your part on how to to overome the pain and their free will. This is the immediete free will choice. Other decisions made in the past led to this particular outcome, therefore the swearing was a choice based on decisions made at the time and in the past.

King me! I prefer checkers.

Dishing up cat poop and saying someone "chose" to go hungry isn't offering a choice, it's a game. My victory stands. And you misspelled "immediate". :razz:

fennario wrote:Dishing up cat poop and saying they "chose" to go hungry isn't offering a choice, it's a game. My victory stands. And you misspelled "immediate". :razz:

My apologies for misspelling in my enthusiasm to post. On the point of going hungry, do you deny that others are choosing (others being government, etc.) the state of hunger? Their choice is based on their knowledge to impart their will on the hungry. They could also choose to feed the hungry. If the hungry person had the knowledge to overcome this situation would they not choose to do so?

I therefore restate my oringinal statement at the very begining of this section of the forum.

Free will based on the knowledge one has at a particular time. We make choices based on that knowledge.

Which only reinforces my point that free will is extremely limited, since your example shows there is not enough to go around. Bow down to The Queen.

fennario wrote:Which only reinforces my point that free will is extremely limited, since your example shows there is not enough to go around. Bow down to The Queen.

Free will is only limited by knowledge. I never stated a degree of limitation but only that it exists through knowledge.

The existence of knowledge about a lot of things is often theoretical, at best, and therefore not available. OMG OWNZORD! PWN! PWN! PWN!

fennario wrote:No, Wood, it just kinda came out. Stanze, you can label common life events "trauma" if you prefer, just don't presume to advise people who have been through the more intense forms based on that little bit, or tell them they "chose" it. It's extremely offensive. Just sayin'.

The same way as I found extremely offensive to say that I don't know what's a trauma because I "only" had personal family tragedies. I was not presuming to advise anyone, you are saying that. I was discussing a subject in an objective way, and giving my own opinion about that. But, as I said, I have my opinion, you have yours and we could close this subject here, okay?

Stanze

You said you "work with" them and tell them these things. Don't contradict yourself.

If there's no fate, why can you look at an infant's birth chart and tell their life?

fennario wrote:You said you "work with" them and tell them these things. Don't contradict yourself.

Hi Fenn

What I said was ... "Also, I work with people in nood, sons of misery and despair. I visit them and talk to them. What I do though is to show them there is another way. I don't feel pity because this would be considering they are incapable to get out of that situation and construct their life EVEN with trauma experiences. What would be the other option? To cry, to feel miserable the rest of their lives and die like that? Sorry, but I don't think so."

I never said I tell them these things. I was responding to Kat that I also work with people that has emergencies in their lives, so I know what's to suffer from absence of something. I'm not psychologist but I do have my own knowledge based in my life experiences. I'm not ashamed to share my thoughts, my ideas and to give my hand to people I see needing it.

My work is helping people in emergencial situation as I work for a project-funding organisation. I do visit people in the fields and the projects we help to finance help them to overcome tragedies, being these based on violence, catastrophes or even wars/conflicts. I don't do a psychological work and I don't go there having the same level of discussion I'm having here. But with our help and the help of local organisations we try to help them to see themselves as human beings capable of overcoming anything, giving impulse to their lives and getting out of the situation they find themselves.

Sorry once more if my wording made a confusion.
Stanze

Chanah wrote:If there's no fate, why can you look at an infant's birth chart and tell their life?

Hi Chanah, interesting... do you also see fate as obligations, like debts from previous lives? I'm curious about that because this is something I always ask myself about...

Stanze

Chanah wrote:If there's no fate, why can you look at an infant's birth chart and tell their life?

Yeah Chanah! You have caught the fallacy in my statement at the begining of this. I stated that there is no fate, only free will based on knowledge or lack of. It would have been equally incorrect for me to state that we have no free will because we can never control all the variables.

The only absolute is knowledge. Can we choose things? Yes. Are there things beyond our control. Yes. Can birth charts work. Yes.

The only thing that slows us down is a lack of knowledge. Which could be viewed as a blessing or a curse depending on our point of view based on the knowledge we have.

So people with certain birth defects, or who are going to lose a lot of people to water tragedies, or who are going to die because a lance pierces their left eye could avoid it all if they knew? Or if someone in the far past knew they had a mutated gene and opted not to reproduce?

Okay, you're saying we don't control variables, so maybe not. But the thing is, if you're good enough (I don't claim to be - some stuff I can see pretty well, but not all of it, I'm no Abu-Mashar), you can see it. You can see the people who will never have knowledge (not necessarily their own fault, they can be born with vital bits missing that prevent them from ever being able to acquire knowledge). You can see when people will die and how they'll die. You can see, if you've got a chart like mine, 'death of husbands' writ large in it. You can see that a man is going to kill his wife..

And you can cast a horary for an event, and see how it's going to play out.

This whole system is far too intricate to put it down to choice - for me. I've seen far too many inevitabilities happen and they don't all involve choice. They simply can't. Unless your concept of knowledge stretches to the point where it's the same as fate, some god-or-gods-like ability to see all and everything.

Yes, Cicero and I part ways when it comes to astrology - and in a few other places as well.

I contradicted myself several times by stating free will is an absolute and then stating there are no absolutes other than knowledge.

Free will and fate are concepts we give things based on knowledge we have.

I repeat: The only absolute is knowledge. As far as avoiding a particular situation with knowledge is it possible?

The only thing I can tell you is: possibly. Because I do not have god like knowledge nor has anyone I have met.

It all boils down to the fact: I do not know!

Does any of us really know?

My only goal in this whole thing was to make people think.

Cicero was a nut case! (Just my opinion based on the knowledge I have at this particular moment.

So, knowledge is an absolute, but you don't know if there are any absolutes?

That's okay. I don't deal in a lot of certainties myself.

Many of the Greeks could be called nut cases. Stoicism went from the Cypriot Jews to the Greeks, at least as far as I can trace it - and given the linguistic difference, there was bound to be some serious error in transmission. But they weren't all raving loonies. Regrettably, the Greek apprehension of the concept eventually brought us evils like western corporate law. (Though yes, it took quite a few twists and turns along the way to get there.)

Stanze, no, I don't believe incarnating by choice is anything to do with the disasters and tragedies that happen. It may be my own limitation, but I cannot conceive of a deity so utterly malevolent that it gives us what we deserve in the world. And while I believe there are evil people, I don't believe all, or even most of us, are so hateful that we'd set this up in some pre-meditated, pre-life way - the mind boggles. Assuming we even have souls or exist in any way beforehand. The idea of getting what one deserves in the world is too horrifying to me.