Could you also explain what point you’re trying to make with that?
Well the main drive in the beginning of this conversation was about my interpretation of the image of God and whether or not that conflicts in any way with what’s known.
But the question of distinction between those with/without free will keeps coming up, understandably. And that’s a topic I’ve got plenty to say on. So it’s not necessarily that there’s a point. It’s that if you want to talk about how I see making that distinction, that’s what this is.
So it wasn’t actually a response to my question. I would rather appreciate a real response.
I’m sorry, I thought I was answering your question.
Let me attempt another angle I think I might see in your question.
The difference between free will in agreement with God’s will and those with non-free-will, is significant. It’s not that all behavior through free will is bad. Free will gives us civilization, art, architecture, all the things born of human invention.
Before the change, humans had no need to invent because they had no desire for anything beyond what they had. So I’d say the primary distinguishing quality between those with and without free will is that those without are not inherently discontent. Always having a problem that needs solving. When before the change it wasn’t seen as a problem at all.
So the various Paleolithic cave paintings, the Venus of Willendorf, and such all post-date Adam? I thought you were placing him much later. And I suppose all the Paleolithic technology of flint-knapping and other sorts also post-date Adam?
But didn’t you say that a desire for anything beyond what you have is bad, something that Jesus discourages?
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Yes, good example. Take those flint tools. Humans didn’t improve on this one invention for 10,000’s of years. Yet within the first few centuries of Sumer they have a truly staggering list of inventions. Just google Sumerian inventions if you’re not familiar.
Cave paintings and these stone tools show that humans were plenty capable of doing all of these things for 100,000’s of years. Yet it was very sparse and didn’t progress in any way for hundreds of generations. Yet within a handful of generations Sumer completely altered how humans live on this planet. And from those first civilizations sprang up 3 different writing systems in different languages (Sumer, Egypt, Indus Valley). All in that one region of the world within a century or so of each other.
No, never said that. I did say that personal possession was something that pre-Adam humans did not have in common with those after.
I’m sorry, but you are quite wrong about that. The new flaking method revolutionized stone tools and allowed for a variety of sophisticated designs. Plenty of other technological innovations before Sumer too. You’re wrong in multiple ways.
So your former criterion of art and technology is bogus, but you have yet to articulate your new criterion.
I don’t believe that happened, and I don’t believe the writing systems of Egypt and the Indus Valley are related to cuneiform in any way. Nor are those of China and Central America.
And you also said that Jesus promoted the same thing. Do we have to go find it?
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Yes, that’s the point. A writing system, not invented once, but 3 different times. Independently of one another.
I don’t think I am.
"By about 1.76 million years ago, early humans began to strike really large flakes and then continue to shape them by striking smaller flakes from around the edges. The resulting implements included a new kind of tool called a handaxe. These tools and other kinds of ‘large cutting tools’ characterize the Acheulean toolkit.
The basic toolkit, including a variety of novel forms of stone core, continued to be made. It and the Acheulean toolkit were made for an immense period of time – ending in different places by around 400,000 to 250,000 years ago." - Early Stone Age Tools | The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program
That’s over a million years. Then, starting about 6000 years ago, in that one specific region, you’ve got at least 3 different writing systems, a base-60 numeral system, chariots, the wheel, weapons, the first monarchy, a lunar calendar, a written law code (Code of Ur-Nammu), boards games, and on and on. And other than the other two writing systems, that was all just in Sumer. Egypt and the Indus Valley both have a pretty impressive list of inventions themselves.
Yes, I quoted Matthew 19:21 where Jesus said if you want to be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor. But you said “a desire for anything beyond what you have is bad”. That’s not at all what I said. I was pointing out how the thing Jesus keyed in on, personal possessions, that’s something in particular that separates pre-Adam humans from post-Adam humans.
5 different times, and not due to diffusion from Mesopotamia.
Yes, and that’s not what I’m talking about. I refer to the more recent pressure flaking of stone cores, which replaced earlier technologies. Sorry, not 6000 years ago but much earlier.
How is that not a desire for anything beyond what you have?
Why does the bible call creation “corrupt” if this is so.
Isnt free will the ability to make choices… I.e one could choose to do X… or one could choose to do y… and one is free ro choose either options…
Why do you thinks crows can’t choose which tree they will build a nest on?
Right. It’s much more significant that at least 3 different writing systems in as many different languages were invented independently, within a century or so of each other.
That’s a different technique to continue making the same tools. It didn’t replace an earlier technology. It replaced an earlier technique.
Where does the bible call creation “corrupt”?
No, quite different tools, and much more sophisticated. It was a major innovation, just the sort you claim only “free will” can produce.
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This is by no means along the same lines and not the sort I “claim only free will can produce”. The “sort” I’m talking about resulted in writing systems, mathematics, astronomy. Not just a new method to make a sharper, pointier tool.
You keep changing your story. Remember this?:
You have abandoned art and all the things born of human invention. Weapons too. Now it’s writing, mathematics, and astronomy, once art and invention are shown to pre-date Sumer. This is known in the trade as “moving the goalposts”.
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I’m just choosing a few examples from a list of dozens of inventions. I can keep listing them all if you prefer. I haven’t abandoned anything. You’re trying to draw a parallel between what I’m talking about to cave paintings and stone tools. I haven’t moved the goalposts. You haven’t shown up to the field yet to even see where the goal posts are.
Cave paintings and stone tools and the figurines show humans way back then were capable. What I’m trying to highlight is a psychological shift that took that capability to a whole new level.
Like writing, in Sumer writing began as a need to keep accounting of what’s owed and who owns what. These were not concerns to indigenous humans. There were no personal possessions. Everything belonged to all the tribe. Now something had to be invented to make sure each gets what they’re owed.
Humans since long before were capable of such things. They just didn’t have the need.
“The thousand years or so immediately preceding 3000 BC were perhaps more fertile in inventions and discoveries than any period in human history prior to the sixteenth century AD” - Archaeologist and Philologist V. Gordon Childe
“a tremendous explosion of knowledge took place as writing, mathematics, and astronomy were discovered. It was as if the human mind had suddenly revealed a new dimension of itself.” - Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess
Yeah, and that shift is illusory, as is shown by your abandonment of any criterion that proves to come before it.
I don’t think “indigenous” means what you think it means.
That’s a claim you’re making up in the absence of evidence.
Assuming he’s right, isn’t that before the big shift you’re talking about? And what does any of that have to do with free will?
There are other discussions here on these forums where I’ve laid out the “criterion” in detail. I’ve talked at length about it and don’t want to just rehash the same stuff again here.
This is well documented. No need for me to inundate this thread with evidence. It doesn’t need proving.
This has everything to do with free will. This is a psychological change. Nothing to physically ‘see’. It has to be determined through observing behavior. This is evidence of that psychological shift. And no, this isn’t before the big shift. Both of these quotes are referring to the specific period I’m talking about.
Let’s try this again. Please define free will. Do hunter-gatherer groups in historical times lack it?
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Do hunter-gatherer groups lack it? Yes. The most direct definition I can give you for free will is the modern human ego. A stronger, more pronounced sense of “I” that was lacking in humanity up until about 6000 years ago.