From: utzoo!decvax!duke!harpo!npoiv!npois!cbosgd!nscs!rew Newsgroups: net.misc Title: Re: determinism vs free will Article-I.D.: nscs.289 Posted: Mon Aug 2 16:33:09 1982 Received: Tue Aug 3 01:21:23 1982 Just to continue the discussion, may I assert that a belief in determinism does NOT require a belief in a god. Those who think that it does often believe that if things are determined then there is some cause of those things, and (ultimately) that there is some FIRST CAUSE that set everything off. This, of course, assumes that there is (was) some beginning to things and eventually will be an end. For a moment, let's assume that any sequence of events (including future events) is fixed but that no causation is involved. That is things happen in an order that is completely predictable but not because of any interrelation between events. Beginnings, ends and causes are all human attempts to understand the sequence of events. Now that we have that straight, how about the idea that sequences are just an order imposed on random events by human consciousness? Bob Warren cbosg!nscs!rew