Seriously?
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Would You Choose to Live in Heaven?
- Thread starter Learner
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Seriously?
Learner
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I'd add more varieties of different colours to the cartoon.
Lion IRC
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In heaven you can do and have anything you want.
In hell you can't.
But the people in heaven don't want the same things as the inhabitants of hell.
In hell you can't.
But the people in heaven don't want the same things as the inhabitants of hell.
skepticalbip
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Sounds like just the place for hedonists.
DBT
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Our wants are programmed, be it in heaven or in hell?
Learner
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Maybe not on this 'Freethought' forum 
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Your very asking of this question is evidence that your free will exists.
You are free to contemplate alternative options whilst simultaneously free to choose one or the other or neither.
Autonomously asserting that you lack free will is self-contradictory and paradoxical.
Hitchens was being ironic/facetious when he said we have no choice but to have free will.
DBT
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Nope, your claim prompted a decision to respond.
Decision making is not free will...the nature of cognition, etc, as pointed out on other occasions.
Nor did you answer the questions. The implications of your claim should be considered and addressed.
Can I have a hoverbike in Hell, or is that Heaven-only thing? Or does no-one in Heaven want a hoverbike?
OK, so you don't know what the rules are, and we are supposed to trust Jesus to only make fair rules.
Now I can answer the question that appears in the OP:
No. I could be signing up to rules that I can't abide by. Like 24/7 worship, or no swearing, or any number of things.
What are my other options? Hell? Annihilation?
DBT
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You still conflate decision making with free while ignoring the neuronal nature of cognition.
Nobody is "autonomously asserting that there is no free will" - the issue is the nature of decision making and conscious will. Conscious will is not the generator of decision making or central controller of the brain and its information processing activity.
You use the term 'free will' as if it explains the totality of human behaviour....never mind that the brain is modular and we experience a conflict of will on a daily basis.
Plus you still have not explained the mechanism of two different sets of desires between the inhabitants of heaven and hell...as you claimed.
Good analysis - we have discussed at length and arrived at the root question:
Do YOU want to buy a pig in a poke?
It’s a great pig. The best. Everything you want. Promise. Various entertainments. Thrones. A GOD! Fountains becoming rivers running down the middle of the streets. No oceans. Mansions wirh pilars. Manicured walkways under palm trees. All happy all day. Except for the people burning, but you won’t mind that. Promise. No evidence, and I can’t describe details because no one knows, including me.
Do YOU want to buy a pig in a poke?
For the record, my most deeply held problem with this “heaven” that y’all imgine is that it includes a hell where people are being tortured. And while that makes me say, “um, no?” what really disturbs me is that actual non-imaginary humans are walking around in my world with hearts that think they can be perfectly happy while knowing people are being tortured. THAT is the real problem in my heart.
And to be clear - this ^^ is the quote I mean when I say we have determned the root question.
Do YOU want to buy a pig in a poke?
Heaven would be FOR those who trust that the pig is in the poke, and that it is a perfect pig. Learner says that if you TRUST that there is a pig in the poke, if you are the type to REALLY BELIEVE IT without ever seeing the pig, then this is a heaven that will please you.
Heaven is perfect for those who say “absolutely yes, take my money” when offered a pig in a poke.
Learner says. He swears it’s true.
So the question you are asking isn’t would we want to live in heaven (snce it can’t be described), the question first is, “are you one of us? Are you an unexamined poke-buyer?”
My answer is, “what kind of rational person does that?”
Lion IRC
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Question - Would you want to live in Heaven? Paradise? A happy place? Utopia? Bliss?
Disingenuous atheist answer - no, because I simply cannot tolerate the idea of being happy while other human beings are suffering
https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment
https://www.worldvision.com.au/child-abuse
https://ourworldindata.org/homicides
https://borgenproject.org/preventable-diseases/
Disingenuous atheist answer - no, because I simply cannot tolerate the idea of being happy while other human beings are suffering
https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment
https://www.worldvision.com.au/child-abuse
https://ourworldindata.org/homicides
https://borgenproject.org/preventable-diseases/
Lion IRC
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If it exists, (and it does) describing free will in terms of decisions and choices - volition - isn't conflating. It isn't false equivalence. Neither do I ignore cognition. Cognition is obviously essential to free will. We evaluate external stimuli and react.
The fact that some of our behaviour is unconscious - involuntary - doesn't mean ALL our behaviour is autonomic.
No. I fully accept that not all behaviour is deliberate.
Ironically, it is YOU who appears to be arguing the case for a totality - no free will.
Yes, Thank you. We DO experience a conflict of will on a daily basis
And a 'conflict' of will is exactly what we would expect to experience as a function of free will evaluation of alternatives. Conversely, we can accurately predict what 'choice' a robot will make. Theres no conflict of will in a computer program. So there's the difference.
I didn't know I was expected to explain the mechanism.
But I'm happy to do so. Its called the neuronal nature of cognition.
DBT
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You make claims even while ignoring the problems being raised.
You say you take cognition into account, but make no attempt at explaining free will in terms of cognition.
You have yet to explain the nature of free will or how it works in terms of cognition.. So far you are only offer affirmative statements.
More to the point, your claim was that there are two sets of wills....that what the inhabitants of heaven want is different to what what the inhabitants of hell want.
These are two different expressions of will. Now you need to explain how that relates to your concept of free will and its driving mechanisms in terms of cognition.
Please don't just repeat that you are not ignoring cognition or the drivers of human behaviour....explain how it works. Make a case.
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I said cognition is obviously essential to free will.
We evaluate external stimuli and react.
How is that not a clear and obvious attempt at explaining free will in terms of cognition.
cognition
/kɒɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/
noun
the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
We evaluate external stimuli and react.
How is that not a clear and obvious attempt at explaining free will in terms of cognition.
cognition
/kɒɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/
noun
the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
You mean, like the 7 year olds, “do you want it to be CHristmas every day?”
Oh, dear. You’ve misunderstood again. I’m sorry this is hard for you to understand.
What I said was, “no I can’t make a decision to live in a place that defines itself as ‘no sadness’ while also being defined as a place that includes the sadness of others being tortured.”
I can sense that this is really hard for you to understand. I never asked that you agree with me, but I always hope you at least understand me.
What I’m trying to tell you is that I am unable to answer a question that makes no bloody sense.
The part that neitherr of you have addressed is to help us understand how that works - because we’re having a hard time picturing that.
Unless we are made into robots, how would it be “bliss” for everybody?
One person’s bliss would directly contradict anoher person’s bliss, even while requiring the other person to play a role in the first person’s bliss that would be anti-bliss for the second person.
Take Trump and Obama in Heaven for example. Trump’s bliss would be for Obama to be his servant (or worse). That would obviously NOT be bliss for Obama. So are they both in comas and given separate realities with fake entities playing the bit role of Obama-servant in Trump’s bliss?
Is that what you mean by paradise?
Lion - I just can’t picture it. How could I possibly say I want to go there when the possibility based on your descriptions is that I’ll be someone’s sex-slave and be mind-washed to think that is bliss?
Do you not see how ridiculous the question is without a good discussion of what paradise even means?
DBT
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You say that cognition is essential to free will, but have yet to explain the how and why of it.
You merely invoke the heart warming term of 'free will' - oh, it feels so good - and a dictionary definition of cognition, as if that explains everything.
It doesn't.
Not to mention your apparently inexplicable division of 'free will' between the inhabitants of heaven and hell....which you have made no attempt to explain.