can we control our feelings?

[blazeofglory]

Can we control our feelings? Theoretically yes we can. There is Free Will. We have people charitable people, altruists, philanthropists, a whole gang of course. All they are conscientiously openhanded engaged in charitable foundations.

But, aside from them we have people who are ruthless, murderers, suicide-bombers and the like. I often wonder and have raised some questions regarding these facts in some threads earlier on inviting disucssions.

Here let us begin with our classical notions of Free Will. . Free Will Exists, so they say and according to it all our actions are shaped by it, and we must be responsible for what we do, the effects of our actions.

But all I want to start here is does anyone become a murderer at will? I oppose this notion. Man falls victims to circumstances, and they behave as directed by the circumstances they are in. When they are driven by some circumstances they become responsive and to be opposed to it will be to against the law of nautre.

A child watching his mother raped, and his father beaten to death, and sisters shamed and himself stripped of all humane cares and concerns can not be expected to behave rationally, and his capacity for discernment under this circumstance will be eroded. He is likely to be revengeful.

Does Free Will work on him from a Biblical doctrine and he will act guided by his conscience. We take conciseness Biblcally and we judge things from a biblical point. But we become unmindful of the reality that circumscribe us to behave in a particular way.

Free Will is the product of a circumstance. If the circumstance we are hemmed in favors us or is conducive to us we will follow a particular tenet, call it the Biblical tenet or the theological one. We listen to conventional teachings. We adhere to moral canons but when things go the other way round our patterns of behavior change and we go swayed by other factors to behave irrationally in a traditional sense.

[brighttears]

Sure but we can't excuse the murderer for his choice, made by his own will power. No matter how extreme the factors are that contribute to behavioral change, its still free will, I mean he could have chose to ignore and move past the feelings that drove him to murder.

[Joyeuse]

I completely agree with your standpoint that man is shaped by the society he lives in. Unfortunately, I don't think there is any practical application of this idea (other than making society better.) If we look at life from this point of view, then no one should be rewarded for their actions, either, because society has caused them to be the good people that did these actions. I think we have to take a Hammurabian point of view on this one; how much should motive really matter once you've taken the life of another human being? Besides, if someone is taking the lives of others, he or she needs to be stopped. We should feel empathy for the murderer; we should not forgive the muderer.

[Superman27]

The bottom line is what makes the most sense. Murderers need to be removed from society. Using the excuse of insanity or temporary insanity is like excusing a clumsy waiter for dropping expensive dishes because he has slippery dish soap on his hands, then giving him some more expensive dishes to carry. Of course he is going to drop them again. If someone kills because of any kind of insanity, it is only more reason to put him away permanently, because he is more likely than others to do it again. This is clear, because he can't help himself. Feeling empathy for anyone is a beneficial exercise for the observer, so I agree with that. I also agree that anyone who kills deliberately (except in defense of the innocent, self or otherwise) should be stopped permanently by one method or another.

[caddy_caddy]

Free Will is the product of a circumstance.
I don't agree with u on this point .Free will = Human being
NO Free will = animals
We are free to the extent that we can leave out our freedom!
Even the loss of a choice is a choice by itself.

[jgweed]

One might not be able to, or indeed desire to, control one's feelings, but one certainly can control one's actions based on those feelings.

[blazeofglory]

It is indeed an arguable point and we do know for sure how our free will can be totally free.

Are we free here? Are we not bound or chained to circumstances. At school we are fettered by fat textbooks and rowdy teachers. At work you are harassed by heaps of works heavily weighing upon you. At home you have all kinds of ..I do not have to tell you and indeed you have to deal with circumstances that are not favoring you.

Tell me when are you free to use free will.

[caddy_caddy]

I think I got what is in your mind.
Free will doesn't mean that we are free . Most of times we bound ourselves to things that limit our freedom but it is in itself an act of free will .

Tell me when are you free to use free will
hhhhhhhhhh
This is like who comes first the egg or the chicken
It is when I have the free will not to be free!

I think I got what is in your mind.
Free will doesn't mean that we are free . Most of times we bound ourselves to things that limit our freedom but it is in itself an act of free will .

Tell me when are you free to use free will
hhhhhhhhhh
This is like who comes first the egg or the chicken
It is when I have the free will not to be free!

[puppyshoes]

The bottom line is what makes the most sense. Murderers need to be removed from society. Using the excuse of insanity or temporary insanity is like excusing a clumsy waiter for dropping expensive dishes because he has slippery dish soap on his hands, then giving him some more expensive dishes to carry. Of course he is going to drop them again. If someone kills because of any kind of insanity, it is only more reason to put him away permanently, because he is more likely than others to do it again. This is clear, because he can't help himself. Feeling empathy for anyone is a beneficial exercise for the observer, so I agree with that. I also agree that anyone who kills deliberately (except in defense of the innocent, self or otherwise) should be stopped permanently by one method or another.
Sorry, insanity is a defence for murder in all civilized societies. It used to be the murderer was hung first and questions asked later. Except in the US, capitol punishment is no longer used in the West. Free will; perhaps all murderers are a little insane!

[wilbur lim]

It is indeed an arguable point and we do know for sure how our free will can be totally free.

Are we free here? Are we not bound or chained to circumstances. At school we are fettered by fat textbooks and rowdy teachers. At work you are harassed by heaps of works heavily weighing upon you. At home you have all kinds of ..I do not have to tell you and indeed you have to deal with circumstances that are not favoring you.

Tell me when are you free to use free will.
Regarding your doubt about if we are free here,I should confess that we are not free.We are under lots of rules and regulations.I can deal them,it is not taxing.Free will is inevitably vital. But let the lives past,and endure the trails,and be faithful in the LORD.

[Bakiryu]

Free Will is an illusion. We are only bound by society and the chains which we ourselves have created.

[Judas130]

It is indeed an arguable point and we do know for sure how our free will can be totally free.

Are we free here? Are we not bound or chained to circumstances. At school we are fettered by fat textbooks and rowdy teachers. At work you are harassed by heaps of works heavily weighing upon you. At home you have all kinds of ..I do not have to tell you and indeed you have to deal with circumstances that are not favoring you.

Tell me when are you free to use free will.

the is a word for your beliefs...i can't remember it...starts with a 'D'.

meh, whatever it is, its not completely fair. to say that a man or woman got to such a successful point because of the circumstances only, then that strips them of reward...meaning anything we do in life is already shaped by our background, nothing we ever do will be truly because of us.

I'd like to receive a certificate, or exam results, or become married, and think that i got there because i Chose to get there. not because it was already decided by 'circumstances favouring me'. You are right, in that a man in england has a better chace of getting good grades than a man in Ghana, but it gives us some happiness and self confidence when we feel we get to where we want to be by choice.

[blazeofglory]

That we get to where we want to be by choice is something what we rationlaize but man does not reach where he or she wants to be by choice and of ocurse there are cirucumstaces and that lead man elsewhere. Everyone in the world want to be in prosperity by choice and no one want to be in adversity or poverty by choice but unable to circumvent cirucumstances man gets plunged into a whirlpoo of problems of all kinds. All of us are not unaware of the fact that things happen phenominally and we can not avert them.