Free Will Quotes

“Under Christianity neither morality nor religion has any point of contact with actuality. It offers purely imaginary causes ("God" "soul," "ego," "spirit," "free will" -- "unfree will" for that matter), and purely imaginary effects ("sin," "salvation," "grace," "punishment," "forgiveness of sins"). Intercourse between imaginary beings ("God," "spirits," "souls"); an imaginary natural science (anthropocentric; a total denial of the concept of natural causes); an imaginary psychology (misunderstandings of self, misinterpretations of agreeable or disagreeable general feelings -- for example, of the states of the nervus sympathicus with the help of the sign-language of religio-ethical balderdash -- , "repentance," "pangs of conscience," "temptation by the devil," "the presence of God"); an imaginary teleology (the "kingdom of God," "the last judgment," "eternal life"). -- This purely fictitious world, greatly to its disadvantage, is to be differentiated from the world of dreams; the later at least reflects reality, whereas the former falsifies it, cheapens it and denies it. Once the concept of "nature" had been opposed to the concept of "God," the word "natural" necessarily took on the meaning of "abominable" -- the whole of that fictitious world has its sources in hatred of the natural (-- the real! --), and is no more than evidence of a profound uneasiness in the presence of reality. . . . This explains everything. Who alone has any reason for lying his way out of reality? The man who suffers under it. But to suffer from reality one must be a botched reality. . . . The preponderance of pains over pleasures is the cause of this fictitious morality and religion: but such a preponderance also supplies the formula for decadence...”

“Education should aim at destroying free will so thatpupils thus schooled, will be incapable throughoutthe rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwisethan as their schoolmasters would have wished. . . .Influences of the home are obstructive; and in orderto condition students, verses set to music and repeatedlyintoned are very effective. . . . It is for afuture scientist to make these maxims precise andto discover exactly how much it costs per head tomake children believe that snow is black. When thetechnique has been perfected, every government thathas been in charge of education for more than onegeneration will be able to control its subjects securelywithout the need of armies or policemen.”

“As a writer, It’s an elation to see my own words in print, to float them out there for all the world to read and to learn that some of the world actually does read them. Of their own free will! It warms the heart. However, I have learnt that in spite of frequent and sound advice, the world has not become a noticeably more peaceful kingdom. Folly abounds, incompetence, wrath, crime, nonsense prevails, thieves multiply, power corrupts. And my bones creak in the morning. Still, spectacular things go on in the sky; forms and colors and movements, cloud shapes and sunscapes so awesome I ought to end everyday standing on a rooftop and clapping and calling for more. Slowly I learn bits of what there is to see, and then forget and learn again. And learn too that mortality is the stuff of life; learn how soon the young get old, how short a while is for ever. It’s sad to stand on the hill and, one by one, see the lights go out around you; sad to know the paper has begun turning yellow before the pencil gets to the bottom of the page, to realize there won’t be time enough to get it all done – the chores, the cooking, the sitting on the porch to watch the birds dart at dusk, the major work. But there’s something reassuring too in understanding that death is nature’s, life’s, God’s way of letting us know that we are never meant to save the world single-handedly, to keep the sun aloft and the old globe spinning. What we’re meant to do, I hope, is fill some small and temporary slot, to give off a little light for a little while and then lie down. I’m comfortable with that, with the notion of being a small voice yapping away in a small planet. One of many voices, neither the wisest, nor the best, but mine, and fairly close to as good as I can make it.”

“Unless you realize that there is a sun beyond comprehension of this limited mind... the life shall remain confined within a Box...”

“For you will certainly carry out God's purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John.”

“We should all live as though someone is writing a book about us.”

“...the magic was a tool, though a natural, mysterious tool. In its awareness of the magic, his human nature had desired to connect with it, to use it. The whisperings were the voice of his own awakening, not the seductive call of a dark power. Using it was not corruption, but a natural extension of his being. And he could control the manner in which he used it. He would.”

“The neurological condition of echopraxia is to autonomy as blindsight is to consciousness.”

“I don't know that I believe that God is in control of everything that happens. As a Jew, I believe that we have free will and we are responsible for our actions. But I guess it's something I'm still probing.”

“Every woman who chooses--joyfully, thoughtfully, calmly, of her own free will and desire--not to have a child does womankind a massive favor in the long term. We need more women who are allowed to prove their worth as people, rather than being assessed merely for their potential to create new people. After all, half of those new people we go on to create are also women--presumably themselves to be judged, in their futures, for not making new people. And so it will go on, and on...While motherhood is an incredible vocation, it has no more inherent worth than a childless woman simply being who she is, to the utmost of her capabilities. To think otherwise betrays a belief that being a thinking, creative, productive, and fulfilled woman is, somehow, not enough. That no action will ever be the equal of giving birth.”

“Thalion continued. “The human world was very young and the disobedient children of God had just fallen, creating the underworld. Your God because of their desire to be like God forsook them. They craved and desired, the one thing that they should have never wanted, and that was to be as great as their creator. During this time of peace, the supernaturals traveled freely between the realms. We all knew of the fallen, the angels that had become demons, and knew that they were never to be released from the hell in which they had been cast. Their evil was beyond anything that was ever known. The leader of them, Lucifer, had declared war on the human children of God and desired more than anything to take their souls, to drag them to the hell he and his were stuck in for all eternity. All of the supernatural races were warned by an angel of God to never allow the demons from the underworld to escape their own realm. The veil was sealed by the angel and hidden from all.Unfortunately, evil always seems to find more evil. All evil things are drawn to each other, seeking out those who would help them in their cause. Though the veil to the underworld was hidden, the evil beyond it was great and as more and more lost souls were cast there after their deaths, and so the evil grew. It began to permeate the air around the veil such that other beings could detect it. There was no one who knew how to open it, but that didn’t stop them from trying.As the sons of men began to allow evil into their hearts, and as they began to stray farther from their God, they began seeking out other ways to fill the void inside them. They began to worship other beings, or objects. They sought out meanings for their lives in ways that caused darkness to creep into their hearts. God desired men to have free will and he would not force their loyalty to him. Sin was corrupting the world and Lucifer was allowed some control in the human realm. That sin gave Lucifer just the opening he needed to whisper lies into the ears of those who would listen. He pointed them in the direction divinity and sorcery where they learned how to contact the dead. They thought they were contacting loved ones who had passed on, but in reality they were drawing the demon spirits to them and giving them power, so much power that the demons began to be able to manipulate the actions of men and women still living.”

“She is her own definition of beauty. She is pure. She is majestic; mystical even. Her smile is always rejuvenating. Her presence is always illuminating. She is magic in thought, and magic in sight. She takes away your free will, and forces you smile. She takes away your fatigue, and only gives you strength. She always rouses my soul and makes me stretch for more. I lose no words for her. I lose no heartbeats for her. I love her. I adore her. And I won’t dance around her – I’ll embrace her. You are a magnificent friend, and the long awaited dream come true.”

“Losing a belief in free will has not made me fatalistic—in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. There is no telling how much I might change in the future. Just as one wouldn’t draw a lasting conclusion about oneself on the basis of a brief experience of indigestion, one needn’t do so on the basis of how one has thought or behaved for vast stretches of time in the past. A creative change of inputs to the system—learning new skills, forming new relationships, adopting new habits of attention—may radically transform one’s life.”

“To the Buddhist or the eastern fatalist, existence is a science or a plan, which must end up in a certain way. But to a Christian, existence is a STORY, which may end up in any way. In a thrilling novel (that purely Christian product) the hero is not eaten by cannibals; but it is essential to the existence of the thrill that he MIGHT be eaten by cannibals. The hero must (so to speak) be an eatable hero. So Christian morals have always said to the man, not that he would lose his soul, but that he must take care that he didn't. In Christian morals, in short, it is wicked to call a man "damned": but it is strictly religious and philosophic to call him damnable.All Christianity concentrates on the man at the cross-roads. The vast and shallow philosophies, the huge syntheses of humbug, all talk about ages and evolution and ultimate developments. The true philosophy is concerned with the instant. Will a man take this road or that? - that is the only thing to think about, if you enjoy thinking.”

“I know now that the poem in my head, the one that pushed me to the page, begged me - or dared me to be born is almost never the poem that comes out. I suppose it’s like anything born of/with free will and the will to live: once I’ve given the seed, once the juices flow through any sort of birth canal and make it to the ambient air there will, at that point, be forces that come into play that are no longer entirely mine. To forget that each word is a life unto itself is to strangle it dead before it can even take a step.”

“We have to believe in free-will. We've got no choice.”

“Who can ever know what path to walk on when all of them are either crooked or broken? One just has to walk.”

“I've been coerced into free will.”

“Every human act had a power behind it, every power had an authority, and every authority had a purpose-dirty bombs constituted by free will and amended by angelic and demonic influence unto the driving of humanity-it was very much active directing. ~RUIN Katara Aggelos”

“If there was no free will in men, then there is no sins. When sins happened, it was 'free will' that made them doable. This is true, unless God has predestined human to do and to have sins.”