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

Guest on Tue May 19, 2009 9:11 pm

For lack of a better location, let's put this in the Lounge!

Chanah wrote:I respect your wish to close this particular thread,
Analae, but the topic we've wandered into is important as well.

If
free will is so prevalent, then why do oracles work? I'd argue that
free will isn't all that prevalent, and that's actually a good thing
when you come right down to it, and that's one of the primary reasons
fortune telling does work. I do think this topic merits discussion somewhere - I just don't know where on the board to post it.

fennario on Tue May 19, 2009 10:33 pm

Life tends towards the horrific and people create these faux spiritual concepts as a way of whistling past the graveyard. The problem comes in when they start assigning blame to the less fortunate and leaving it to some celestial Ward Cleaver to come home and set things right. It's appalling.

fennario on Wed May 20, 2009 12:53 am

In other words, our free will amounts to about 37 cents and lunch costs six bucks.

Stanze on Wed May 20, 2009 2:26 am

Chanah, I do agree with you that this is an important topic and yes, it is also the base thought about oracles, divination, etc.

One of the things we mention always here is that "nothing is set on stone". Ok, one of the things that can "move" the stone - as far as I can see it - is free will. The oracle shows a tendency, where you action now is leading you. You can follow, you can be so much impressed that you can "let it happen" if it is a bad thing and you can also "do not believe" because it's sooo good - and then things don't really happen...

Oracles would always be right, for everybody, anytime, but we know this is not the case.

Fenn, I do believe we have a purpose on Earth and that our existence here is a test. All the simbology wrote in years and years by men is showing this to us. We have the free will to believe or not. While I'm studying the Law of Attraction I'm making comparisions with some religions, being the one I make more comparisions the Catholic one, because this is the one I was raised with. So, the Bible has a strong simbology about the Tree of Good and Evil and the Tree of Knowledge. Eva & Adam ate the apple from the Tree of he Knowledge, so they were able to distinguish Good and Evil. God said it's their choice, this saying I call free will.

Yes, people can do harm to other people and sometimes their harm will be stronger than your wish to be happy (or alive). The Law of Attraction talks about "feeling". As much intense you feel something as much you attract it. It's there to everybody, poor, rich, suffering, healthy, etc. It's the most Democratic thing in this existence.

To give you a small example... there are people that have suffered accidents and can't walk. Some of them will stay depressed, and going deeper and deeper in their misery. I have a cousin in the same situation. He is not walking but after the accident he married, has kids, finish his University studies and is even driving a car and it's very happy. Did he wish to be in this paraplegical situation? I don't know but I do know that he concentrate his focus on doing everything he wanted in life besides the problem... and of course you can say, yes, it's one example in 1.000. Yes, it is, but there are also 1.000 other examples like this, in different situations...

Stanze

fennario on Wed May 20, 2009 11:27 am

Stanze wrote:Chanah, I do agree with you that this is an important topic and yes, it is also the base thought about oracles, divination, etc.

One of the things we mention always here is that "nothing is set on stone". Ok, one of the things that can "move" the stone - as far as I can see it - is free will. The oracle shows a tendency, where you action now is leading you. You can follow, you can be so much impressed that you can "let it happen" if it is a bad thing and you can also "do not believe" because it's sooo good - and then things don't really happen...

I agree that you can usually choose to act, or not. I don't have much patience with the passive and the docile. It's usually best to make the attempt.Whether your efforts make any difference is another story entirely. Right now I am trying to counter some highly toxic snake oil that a lot of people seem to be buying. Whether I make any headway is something else entirely.

The irony here is that this free will garbage is used to JUSTIFY passivity: According to free will dogma, people who suffer chose that path, it's their own fault, they like living like that...so keep them right where they are. Mad

Yes, people can do harm to other people and sometimes their harm will be stronger than your wish to be happy (or alive). The Law of Attraction talks about "feeling". As much intense you feel something as much you attract it. It's there to everybody, poor, rich, suffering, healthy, etc. It's the most Democratic thing in this existence.

Please tell me what these people "felt" in order to attract this:
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=gmail&rls=gm&q=sudan%20famine&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi

To give you a small example... there are people that have suffered accidents and can't walk. Some of them will stay depressed, and going deeper and deeper in their misery.

Are you saying that all they have to do is think positive and everything is guaranteed to work out for them?

Are you saying that people who tackle the problem like one of those inspirational TV movies about someone with no legs running marathons are somehow more spiritual or more knowledgeable than the ones who can't rise above something horrible like this?

Remember Def Leppard? When Rick Allen lost his arm in the accident? http://www.nndb.com/people/979/000029892/ He inspired so much loyalty in his bandmates that they refused to go on as Def Leppard without him.
He was inspired to have a special drum kit made that he could play with his feet as well as his remaining arm. In 1987 they released Hysteria, the biggest success of their career and went on a triumphant world tour, selling out huge stadiums everyplace they went. They had a rotating stage so everybody could see How Rick Did It. Are you misty-eyed yet?

In 1995, he beat the crap out of his wife. He pled guilty in 1996.

Is Rick Allen an inspiration to millions who overcame great odds or is he a jerk who gets snot-slinging drunk on New Years Eve, wrecks expensive cars, and smacks his women around?

Come to think of it, how great WERE the odds he overcame? He had plenty of money to have a custom drum kit designed and built. Someone less wealthy wouldn't have been able to afford anything like that. They might eventually fall into despair and depression BECAUSE they couldn't do what they loved anymore. That would give the Law of Attraction crowd an excuse to say it was "their fault". After all, you're not obligated to help anyone who CHOOSES their misery. How convenient.

I have a cousin in the same situation. He is not walking but after the accident he married, has kids, finish his University studies and is even driving a car and it's very happy. Did he wish to be in this paraplegical situation? I don't know

You don't know?

but I do know that he concentrate his focus on doing everything he wanted in life besides the problem... and of course you can say, yes, it's one example in 1.000. Yes, it is, but there are also 1.000 other examples like this, in different situations...

That just shows how random these things are. Everything has causes, but there are so many variables involved, it's never really up to you. Your cousin is one person, Rick Allen is one person, a despairing disabled person who gives up is one person, a person who isn't able to rise above their circumstances is one person. All different. There's not enough consistency to prove the existence of any "Law of Attraction".

The simple truth is, people have cognitive biases. Take some time to study that link. Cognitive biases are taken advantage of by people like Abraham-Hicks, Norman Vincent Peale, whoever that clown was who wrote The Secret, so many others...they're simply selling the public bottled air.

This is not a harmless little fairy tale that people find comfort in. This is a horrible mindgame that's used to shift blame onto others who are suffering,
It's used to justify the worst kinds of racism and abuse of the lower classes.

**Kapherus** on Thu May 21, 2009 9:12 am

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.

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. 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.

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.

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. 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.

Even after all these years, I'm not sure I completely buy into the theory. There are obvious holes in the argument-- such as the huge discrepancy in the number of victims in each account. 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.

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. 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.

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, 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. Wink

Kaph

Chanah on Thu May 21, 2009 10:28 am

I do want to respond to this properly, Kaph, but for the moment I'll just note that as soon as the tide turned in Rome, Christians tortured, persecuted, and murdered millions - even some of their own, not to mention those of us unfortunate enough not to be born into the dominant western religion.

If some mythical scales have to be balanced on that account, too, I really don't want to be around to see it. But I don't, can't believe les dieux ont soif (the gods want blood, to paraphrase in English).

Kat on Thu May 21, 2009 10:29 am

Kapherus wrote: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.

I have a problem with the concept of reincarnation. I cannot see what lessons the countless babies that are abused and neglected, left to starve to death, beaten senseless or worse, came here to learn. What lessons could they possibly have faced and mastered at such a young age?
What about the children who are physically, psychologically and emotionally abused from the time they are babies? How can we then say "they chose to come here for this experience"? How can we tell them, as adults, once they are scarred beyond belief, that they chose to come here to learn to overcome the need to feel victimised?
How can we tell the starving children, the ones that are born with aids, the ones who live in abject poverty, that they chose this life, that they chose to be racially reincarnated?
How can we believe this? For if we believe this, then we must also believe that others chose to come here to perpetrate these horrific and vile acts.
That mass murderers, the sexual abusers, the paedophiles all reincarnated with an agenda, that the crimes they were going to commit, the lives they were going to lead was determined before they were born.

Kat

Stanze on Thu May 21, 2009 10:40 am

It's very interesting what you have posted, Kaph, because I was thinking yesterday about the link between reincarnation and the Attraction Law. I'm Catholic but I can say I'm more Christian than Catholic as I don't buy and follow some of the church rules. I'm a curious mind and soul and I'm also a "St. Thomas" = I have to see it happens to believe. Sometimes this is bad as I also believe faith is very important and plays a significant role in every and single kind of religion, process, whatever I've seen so far.

Like you, I do believe Alan Kardec's theories are something that - in a way - explain many things in this life. I always have some discussions with my brother about that because he studies it more than me. And now I'm trying to link the Law of Attraction to it as I've been trying to link to the teachings of Christ and some beliefs and thoughts of the Indian's religions. So far, so good, I can say.

I also have the opinion that any discussion involving themes like this are meant to clarify and open your eyes and mind to other thoughts and never to convince anyone. I like to hear the doubts and the contrary thoughts of others because sometimes they match mine and sometimes they make me think about it. And on thinking about it I try to see if there's an explanation or a match to any study I've been reading, learning or seeing...

So, thanks you all to share your ideas around here. thumbs up

Stanze

Stanze on Thu May 21, 2009 10:55 am

Kat wrote: I have a problem with the concept of reincarnation. I cannot see what lessons the countless babies that are abused and neglected, left to starve to death, beaten senseless or worse, came here to learn. What lessons could they possibly have faced and mastered at such a young age?
What about the children who are physically, psychologically and emotionally abused from the time they are babies? How can we then say "they chose to come here for this experience"? How can we tell them, as adults, once they are scarred beyond belief, that they chose to come here to learn to overcome the need to feel victimised?
How can we tell the starving children, the ones that are born with aids, the ones who live in abject poverty, that they chose this life, that they chose to be racially reincarnated?
How can we believe this? For if we believe this, then we must also believe that others chose to come here to perpetrate these horrific and vile acts.
That mass murderers, the sexual abusers, the paedophiles all reincarnated with an agenda, that the crimes they were going to commit, the lives they were going to lead was determined before they were born.

Kat

Hi Kat

I had the same thought as you. Please, I'm not an expert here, but 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. And... if we see it in the eyes of the reincarnation, this poor child could be Hitler himself... 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. But lots of them teach a lesson to the ones surrounding them and some of them are more wise than normal people.

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.

Stanze

wood on Thu May 21, 2009 11:01 am

I would hate to think that I have no free will. It would make everything I think or do a colossal waste of time. Why bother to learn anything, or to improve myself. Why bother to even have religion if it is preordained from the moment of my birth to go to heaven or hell, not that I neccessarily believe in either. We could just skip the alive part altogether. As nature does not waste anything, I can't believe it would be wasteful towards free will. Nothing is preordained, though some things can be predicted.

Chanah on Thu May 21, 2009 11:04 am

Point of fact, Stanze: Catholics are Christians. Catholicism was the first variant of Christianity. The Jerusalem Church in the Christian bible (Book of James) was not Christianity, it was a short-lived variant of Judaism - it lacked belief in demi-gods (Jesus wasn't a god or saviour) and metaphysical salvation and damnation (heaven, hell, afterlives), both of which are required beliefs in Christianity proper, and even Epiphanius lists them as heretics.

There was an early schism that created the Eastern Orthodox Church, but Protestant Christianity didn't come into being until the 1500s with Martin Luther and Calvin. Catholics are still very much Christians, despite a few looped Protestant sects proclaiming that they're not.

Chanah on Thu May 21, 2009 11:09 am

wood wrote:I would hate to think that I have no free will. It would make everything I think or do a colossal waste of time. Why bother to learn anything, or to improve myself. Why bother to even have religion if it is preordained from the moment of my birth to go to heaven or hell, not that I neccessarily believe in either. We could just skip the alive part altogether. As nature does not waste anything, I can't believe it would be wasteful towards free will. Nothing is preordained, though some things can be predicted.

Free will came into being on account of Christianity, Wood. The idea that somebody might not be able to accept the Christian saviour was, naturally, anathema to the Christian church - it couldn't be allowed to be. So voilá, everybody was endowed with free will.

You might want to read up on the Stoic idea of fate. It's not quite as dreadful as Christian propaganda makes it sound. And it certainly doesn't mean you can't do anything in this life. It does, however, mean you have limits. Why people find that objectionable, I'm not sure, but they do.

wood on Thu May 21, 2009 11:19 am

Chanah wrote:
wood wrote:I would hate to think that I have no free will. It would make everything I think or do a colossal waste of time. Why bother to learn anything, or to improve myself. Why bother to even have religion if it is preordained from the moment of my birth to go to heaven or hell, not that I neccessarily believe in either. We could just skip the alive part altogether. As nature does not waste anything, I can't believe it would be wasteful towards free will. Nothing is preordained, though some things can be predicted.

Free will came into being on account of Christianity, Wood. The idea that somebody might not be able to accept the Christian saviour was, naturally, anathema to the Christian church - it couldn't be allowed to be. So voilá, everybody was endowed with free will.

You might want to read up on the Stoic idea of fate. It's not quite as dreadful as Christian propaganda makes it sound. And it certainly doesn't mean you can't do anything in this life. It does, however, mean you have limits. Why people find that objectionable, I'm not sure, but they do.

The only limits I believe I have is in knowledge, if I can learn to do something it can overcome any physical limitations. Free will has always existed but I do agree the concept of it was generated by Christianity.

Chanah on Thu May 21, 2009 11:24 am

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?

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

What kinds of fate can be overcome by knowledge? Being born a slave in a starving and war-torn country? Genetic fatal illness?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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