Religion

"Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will."

"Many educators, and even politicians, have been firmly convinced that "free will" is not compatible with Newtonian physics, but very much so with quantum theory. They have been convinced also that it is desirable that the citizen should believe in free will, and they have exerted a certain influence in favor of the indeterministic formulation of subatomic physics. What they have in mind is certainly a sociological purpose of science, whatever the technological purposes may be."

"We must not think of the problem in terms of a choice between being determined and being free. We must look at it dialectically, and say that man is indeed determined, but that it is open to him to overcome necessity, and that this act is freedom. Freedom is not static but dynamic; not a vested interest, but a prize continually to be won. The moment man stops and resigns himself, he becomes subject to determinism. He is most enslaved when he thinks he is comfortably settled in freedom."

"If human beings can simply decide on what they want to do and then do it, then forecasting is impossible. Free will is beyond forecasting. But what is most interesting about humans is how unfree they are. It is possible for people today to have ten children, but hardly anyone does. We are deeply constrained in what we do by the time and place in which we live."

"Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self preservation?"

"Both narrow-minded science and narrow-minded theology stand opposed to free will. ...The philosophical problem of chance and free will are closely related. The Socinian theology deals with both together. Free will is the coupling of a human mind to otherwise random processes inside the brain. God's will is the coupling of a universal mind to otherwise random processes in the world at large."

"The current worldview has it that everything is made of matter, and everything can be reduced to the elementary particles of matter, the basic constituents — building blocks — of matter.' And cause arises from the interactions of these basic building blocks or elementary particles; elementary particles make atoms, atoms make molecules, molecules make cells, and cells make brain. But all the way, the ultimate cause is always the interactions between the elementary particles. This is the belief — all cause moves from the elementary particles. This is what we call "upward causation." So in this view, what human beings — you and I think of as our free will does not really exist. It is only an epiphenomenon or secondary phenomenon, secondary to the causal power of matter. And any causal power that we seem to be able to exert on matter is just an illusion. This is the current paradigm. Now, the opposite view is that everything starts with consciousness. That is, consciousness is the ground of all being. In this view, consciousness imposes "downward causation." In other words, our free will is real. When we act in the world we really are acting with causal power. This view does not deny that matter also has causal potency — it does not deny that there is causal power from elementary particles upward, so there is upward causation — but in addition it insists that there is also downward causation. It shows up in our creativity and acts of free will, or when we make moral decisions. In those occasions we are actually witnessing downward causation by consciousness."

"Dieser yrthum von freyen willen ist eyn eygen Artickel des Endchrist."

"What we really mean by free will... is the visualizing of alternatives and making a choice between them. ...the central problem of human consciousness depends on this ability to imagine."

"Heaven weeps, but free will is sacred. The meaning of yes is created by the ability to say no."

"Endowed with a spiritual soul, with intellect and with free will, the human person is from his very conception ordered to God and destined for eternal beatitude."

"Throughout your treatment you forget that you said that 'free-will' can do nothing without grace, and you prove that 'free-will' can do all things without grace! Your inferences and analogies "For if man has lost his freedom, and is forced to serve sin, and cannot will good, what conclusion can more justly be drawn concerning him, than that he sins and wills evil necessarily?""

"I believe that free will is better defined as a belief that there is a component to biological behavior that is something more than the unavoidable consequences of the genetic and environmental history of the individual and the possible stochastic laws of nature."

"Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity."

"The people who walk angelically according to their free will and practice discipline in the life of the angels remove themselves completely from the desires of the flesh, beloved brothers; they die daily in the life that belongs to earth, but they live in the life of the angels, just as they share in the life of the Lord."

"It might be said that within the limits of the intelligent direction of the intelligent man, there is free will, as far as activity in the human kingdom is concerned. Where no mind activity is present, and where there is no power to discriminate, to analyse and to choose, there is no free will."

"Christ and the spiritual Hierarchy never - no matter how great the need or important the incentive - infringe upon the divine right of men to take their own decisions, to exert their own free will, and to achieve freedom by fighting for freedom - individually, nationally, and internationally. When true freedom covers the earth, we shall see the end of tyranny - politically, religiously and economically. I am not here referring to modern democracy as a condition which meets the needs, for democracy is at present a philosophy of wishful thinking, and an unachieved ideal. I refer to that period which will surely come, in which an enlightened people will rule; these people will not tolerate authoritarianism in any political system; they will not accept or permit the rule of any body of men who undertake to tell them what they must believe in order to be saved, or what government they must accept. When the people are told the truth, and when they can freely judge and decide for themselves, we shall then see a much better world."

"To change the subject, he said, “I’ve been thinking a lot.” “What about?” “Free will.” “Free will?” “Yeah,” he said, trying not to fidget, a weird feeling in his head. “I reckon free will is bullshit.” “You need to get some sleep, Spider.” “No, no, I feel okay, more or less.” “Free will,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s an illusion. That’s all it is. Everything is already sorted out, every decision, every possibility, it’s all determined, scripted, whatever.” Iris was looking at him as if she was worried. “Where’d all this come from?” “I’ve been to the End of bloody Time, Iris. From that perspective, everything is done and settled. Basically, everything that could happen has happened. It’s all mapped out, documented, diagrammed, written up in great big books, and ignored.” “You’re a crazy bastard, you know that, Spider?” “Maybe not crazy enough,” he said. Iris was still struggling for traction on the conversation. “You think everything is predetermined? Is that it? But what about—” “No. You just think you have free will.” “So, according to you,” Iris said, looking bewildered, “a guy who kills his wife was always going to kill her. She was always going to die.” “From his point of view, he doesn’t know that, and neither does she, but yeah. She was always a goner, so to speak.” “There is no way I can accept this,” she said. “It’s intolerable. It robs individual people of moral agency. According to you nobody chooses to do anything; they’re just following a script. That means nobody’s responsible for anything.” “I said free will is an illusion. We think we’ve got moral agency, we think we make choices. It’s a perfect illusion. It just depends on your point of view.” “It’s a bloody pathway to madness, I reckon,” Iris said. “I dunno,” he said. “Right now, sitting here, thinking about everything, I think it makes a lot of sense. Kinda, anyway.” “Think you’ll find that’s just an illusion,” she said, and flashed a tiny smile."

"There is a way to escape the inference of superluminal speeds and spooky action at a distance. But it involves absolute determinism in the universe, the complete absence of free will. Suppose the world is super-deterministic, with not just inanimate nature running on behind-the-scenes clockwork, but with our behavior, including our belief that we are free to choose to do one experiment rather than another, absolutely predetermined, including the ‘decision’ by the experimenter to carry out one set of measurements rather than another, the difficulty disappears. There is no need for a faster-than-light signal to tell particle A what measurement has been carried out on particle B, because the universe, including particle A, already ‘knows’ what that measurement, and its outcome, will be."

"Idrīs (and Enoch) has also been woven into the Islamic mythology surrounding the Greco-Egyptian god Hermes Trismegistos as the first incarnation of the tripartite Hermes."

"Ahl-e Ḥaqq, (Arabic: “People of Truth,” or “People of God”), a secret, syncretistic religion, derived largely from [[Islām, whose adherents are found in western Iran, with enclaves in Iraq. They retain the 12 imams of the Ithnā ʿAsharīyah sect and such aspects of Islāmicmysticism as the communal feast. Central to their religion, however, is a belief in seven successive manifestations of God. They further believe in the transmigration of souls, asserting that every person must pass through 1,001 incarnations, in the course of which he receives the proper reward for his actions."

"Sikhism teaches a doctrine of reincarnation based on the Hindu view but in addition holds that, after the Last Judgment, souls—which have been reincarnated in several existences—will be absorbed in God."

"Muslims believe that there are no intermediaries between God and the creation that he brought into being by his sheer command, “Be.” Although his presence is believed to be everywhere, he is not incarnated in anything. He is the sole creator and sustainer of the universe, wherein every creature bears witness to his unity and lordship. But he is also just and merciful: his justice ensures order in his creation, in which nothing is believed to be out of place, and his mercy is unbounded and encompasses everything."

"A slave girl who functions as a dispensable, low-class stand-in (like theNishadas burned in the house of lac) gives birth toVidura, the incarnation of Dharma in fulfillment ofMandavya's curse that he should be born as the son of a Shudra..."

"Dharma, the god, must undergo the curse for miscarriage of dharma. Being born as a human is different both from fathering a child (as Dharma fathersYudhishthira) and from spinning off an incarnation (as Vishnudoes for Rama and Krishna), ..."

"The myth of Vishnu's incarnation as the Buddha is established in full detail in the Vishnu Parana, represented on the sixth- to seventh-century Dashavatara temple at Deogarh and mentioned in a seventh century Pallava inscription and an eight century Tamil inscription."

"Jainism reflects a belief in an eternal and transmigrating life principle (jiva) that is akin to an individual soul—holds that karma is a fine particulate substance that settles upon the jiva according to the deeds that a person does. Thus, the burden of the old karma is added to the new karma that is acquired during the next existence until the jiva frees itself by religious disciplines, especially by ahimsa (“nonviolence”), and rises to the place of liberated jivas at the top of the universe."

"... all conscience and moralizing, and Kumbhakarna (Ravana's monstrous brother, who sleeps for years at a time and wakes only to eat and fight) is a superb literary incarnation of the bestial id."

"The number of Vishnu’s avatars is sometimes extended or their identities changed, according to local preferences. Thus, Krishna is in some areas elevated to the rank of a deity and his half brother, Balarama, included as an avatar."

"Avatar, Sanskrit avatāra (“descent”), in Hinduism, the incarnation of a deity in human or animal form to counteract some particular evil in the world. The term usually refers to these 10 appearances of Vishnu: Matsya (fish), Kurma (tortoise), Varaha (boar), Narasimha (half man, half lion), Vamana (dwarf), Parashurama (Rama with the axe), Rama (hero of the Ramayana epic), Krishna (the divine cowherd), Buddha, and Kalkin (the incarnation yet to come)."

"One formulation of the doctrine is given in the religious poem the Bhagavad Gita when charioteer Lord Krishna tells Arjuna: “Whenever there is a decline of righteousness and rise of unrighteousness then I send forth Myself. For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked, and for the establishment of righteousness, I come into being from age to age.”"

"The sunlight ranges over the universe, and at incarnation we step out of it into the twilight of the body, and see but dimly during the period of our incarceration; at death we step out of the prison again into the sunlight, and are nearer to the reality."

"If we do not practice now while we have an incarnation most suitable to the attainment of enlightenment, what hope do we have for progress in the future? Many types of sentient beings, such as dogs and insects that live near a temple, meet with the teachings but, not having an appropriate physical or mental basis, they are unable to comprehend them or put them to use."

"The major religions that hold a belief in reincarnation, are Asian religions, especially Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, all of which arose in India. They all hold in common a doctrine of karma (karman; “act”), the law of cause and effect, which states that what one does in this present life will have its effect in the next life. In Hinduism the process of birth and rebirth—i.e., transmigration of souls—is endless until one achieves moksha, or liberation (literally “release”) from that process. Moksha is achieved when one realizes that the eternal core of the individual (atman) and the Absolute reality (brahman) are one. Thus, one can escape from the process of death and rebirth (samsara)."

"Instead of a just king and a perfect man, Rāma is an incarnation of Vishnu and an intense object of devotion, dwarfing the Vedic gods; Kampaṉ called his work Irāmāvatāram (“Rāma’s Incarnation”); yet the emphasis is not on Vishnu but on dharma (“the law”), localized and Tamilized."

"The institution of "reincarnating lamas" unique to Tibetan Buddhism and best known to the general public in the case of the Dalai Lama, is very widespread. The great teacher, considered to be an emanation of a celestial Buddha orBodhisattva, is successively incarnated, generation after generation, in the young child selected as his successor and trained almost from infancy for that role. No leaders in Tibetan Buddhism receive greater respect, devotion, and honour, or have greater power and influence than these ”incarnations”, especially those who are heads of major lineages in important monasteries"

"The final form of the (Mahayana) Buddhist doctrine of incarnation is the idea of trikaya, three bodies: first, “Transformation Body,” the earthly Buddha, a transient and illusionary form of existence; second, “Enjoyment Body,” the form of existence for the sake of others; and third, “Dhamma Body,” the ultimate form of existence that indeed is no longer a “form” of existence but formless."

"The ordinary samsaric mind sees the human body as just a tool with which to chase material, social, and biological needs, all of which satisfy only superficial levels of the spirit. Their effects do not pass beyond the gates of death. We have to learn to appreciate the intrinsic spiritual quality of human nature, to have a subtle confidence in the positive, creative aspect of our being. It is difficult to enter spiritual training if one regards one's life as having no purpose other than the pursuit of ephemeral, transient goals, as does a rat who builds a strong nest and then drags home all sorts of trinkets to it. In order to break the mind of this vain, mundane attitude towards life, we sit in meditation and contemplate first the eight freedoms and ten endowments, and then the meaningful and rare nature of a human incarnation."

"Both of them revert to their divine status, but in opposite places. When Brahma is chastising Rama for doubting Sita, he reassures Rama that Sita is an incarnation of the goddess Lakshmi and will be reunited with him in heaven."

"The most important lineage of reincarnation was derived from the basic Buddhist idea of rebirth — the concept of the reimbodiment of a saintly predecessor's existence in a reincarnation of the same being in a new appearance, discovered anywhere in a child born at the right time and recognized by the leading monks and Lamas."

"Christians believe that the estrangement between heaven and earth ended with the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ: “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19)."

"The Buddhist theory of re-incarnation is mainly rooted in the theory of Karma."

"The symbol of the sun circle, one of the most prevalent artistic representations of the sacred king, and the practice of addressing the king as “my sun” are well depicted in rock reliefs and inscriptions in areas ruled by the Hittite kings. The Persian king was regarded as the incarnation of the sun god or of the moon god. In addition to sky or sun deities, the sacred king also has been identified with other gods: the town god (Mesopotamia), the gods of the country, the god of the storm, and the weather god."

"But as flawed humans, we give only a vague hint of God. Our broken reflection of God's image is easily drowned out by our broken humanity. then, two thousand years ago, God came in his fullness. He came to all of us in Jesus. The incarnation is not owned, trademarked, or controlled by any church. It belongs to every human being. The incarnation is not something that requires a distributor or middleman. It is a gracious gift to every person everywhere, religious or not. God gave himself to us in Jesus."

"As on many mornings in Marin, there is this sly strip of fog - water in it's most mystical incarnation - slithering over, around, and through the hills, making everything look ancient and unsolved."

"Beside the 'regular' clergy exists a special class of ecclesiastical dignitaries — the 'incarnations' or living Buddhas who are at the summit of the lamaist hierarchy and who, in right of their very origin differ from the rest. A Qubilghan, is in fact the representative in flesh and blood, of some Buddha, Bodhisattva, god or saint, whose spirit is incarnated in him at the moment of his birth, and will pass, at his death, into the body of the child destined to become his successor in the functions fulfilled by him. The incarnation is thus less a matter of person than function."

"The trouble with most Englishwomen is that they will dress as if they had been a mouse in a previous incarnation they do not want to attract attention."

"I believe that through discipline, though not through discipline alone, we can achieve serenity, and a certain small but precious measure of the freedom from the accidents of incarnation, and charity, and that detachment which preserves the world which it renounces."

"Without God, listening to that Christmas sermon was a vinegar experience. Without the incarnation, Christianity isn't even a very good story, and most sadly, it means nothing. "Be nice to one another" is not a message that can give my life meaning, assure me of love beyond brokenness, and break open the dark doors of death with the key of hope. The incarnation is an essential part of Jesus-shaped spirituality."

"The incarnation has many wonderful aspects...the incarnation is the complete refutation of every human system and institution that claims to control, possess, and distribute God. Whatever any church or religious leader may claim in regard to their particular access to God or control over your experience of God, the incarnation is the last word: God loves the world. God came into the world in the form of the people he created, the human race (including you and me), who bear his image. God's creation of humanity in his image gives hints of who he is, since we all are marked by his fingerprints."