My views on God and religion

[FrustratedFool]

Fair enough.

By saying we are in control of our lives, what does that mean exactly?

Do you think every human is in full control of their life?
Do you think freewill exists?

[ShinyCrystals]

Fair enough.

By saying we are in control of our lives, what does that mean exactly?

Do you think every human is in full control of their life?
Do you think freewill exists?

Well, like I said, everything has limits, so we have control over our lives to an extent. We can make everything of ourselves if we try, and trying is a part of life, but we only have so much control, especially as humans. I probably should have clarified that.

As for free will, it is kind of a mixed bag for me. I do believe it exists, but I think it is kind of exaggerated by some humans. I mean, there are consequences of our actions, but some people don't seem to recognize that.

I believe if we had true free will, we would choose consequences as well as what we choose to do. To me, in that case, we would be truly free. Of course, we don't have free will to that extent. I do not think there are enough humans who understand free will.

I mean, there is no limit as to what we can choose, theoretically speaking, but only theoretically, maybe. There are often factors in situations that may limit how we choose things.

[FrustratedFool]

So you believe in libertarian freewill, but also believe in it being limited and people subject to massive influence.

I see no good reason to believe in libertarian freewill.

If we have limited controland limited freewill, it seems hyperbolic in the extreme to call us gods or say we have God in us.

Do you reject materialism/physicalism?

[ShinyCrystals]

So you believe in libertarian freewill, but also believe in it being limited and people subject to massive influence.

I see no good reason to believe in libertarian freewill.  

If we have limited controland limited freewill, it seems hyperbolic in the extreme to call us gods or say we have God in us.

Like I said, it was metaphoric, not literal.

And honestly, I did not know what libertarian free will was before. Before I go on and maybe change my stance, can you please describe libertarian free will more?

I am starting to think there being a God in all of us was an exaggeration, but I can further explain if necessary.

[FrustratedFool]

I'm no expert, but in its basic form libertarian freewill is the capacity for an agent to choose between two possible outcomes - A or B.

Under LFW it is within my power to choose to instantiate the stae of affairs where I type X or Y.

Contrary to this, determinism would state that I was always going to push X or Y and that there is no agent making a choice, only an illusion (perhaps) of such.

Under materialism where everything beyond the quantum level (or maybe QM too) has naturalistic prior cause, there can he no agent freewill. Whether I typed X or Y was due to the laws of physics outworking in my brain, one brain state to another, and that itself was dependant upon a prior state of affairs, all the way to back to the first cause.

[ShinyCrystals]

I'm no expert, but in its basic form libertarian freewill is the capacity for an agent to choose between two possible outcomes - A or B.

Under LFW it is within my power to choose to instantiate the stae of affairs where I type X or Y.  

Contrary to this, determinism would state that I was always going to push X or Y and that there is no agent making a choice, only an illusion (perhaps) of such.

Under materialism where everything beyond the quantum level (or maybe QM too) has naturalistic prior cause, there can he no agent freewill.  Whether I typed X or Y was due to the laws of physics outworking in my brain, one brain state to another, and that itself was dependant upon a prior state of affairs, all the way to back to the first cause.

In that case...

Can't say I am so much of a believer in terms of libertarian free will now. I am a follower of science, and what you said, pretty much makes sense. I did have a feeling that free will (itself) was kind of an exaggeration. Whatever the origin for free will itself is, I can see that it is not scientific.

Still, anyway, free will or laws of physics, nothing changes the fact that either way, we do not really need a god to rule over or do things for us. In fact, like I may have said, I do think god is a hindrance to us.

I mean, we are born with psychological needs, and I am sure needing a god, or someone else to help or do something for us, is a psychological need. I think the psychological need thing I mentioned would go well more with what you said about the laws of physics, more than free will could ever do.

[FrustratedFool]

I agree.

I think most people have a psychological predisposition to certain things, like ascribing agency to events, believing their mind is separate to their body, being scared of death, thinking of morality as being something objective and external or absolute, desiring meaning and purpose, finding patterns, a strong desire to see justice enacted, a desire for altered states of consciousness, magical thinking, assuming freewill, and so on.

That sort of stuff tends to lead people into religion, I think.

It's hard to think of a way to gain the psychological benefits of religion without its drawbacks and falsehoods.

[LinuxGal]

LG is talking about the evolution of beliefs about god/gods, which is separate from the object of the God-belief changing.

One of the reasons I ended up on this forum is that I'm not convinced in the existence of the object of God-belief.

[ShinyCrystals]

I agree.  

I think most people have a psychological predisposition to certain things, like ascribing agency to events, believing their mind is separate to their body, being scared of death, thinking of morality as being something objective and external or absolute, desiring meaning and purpose, finding patterns, a strong desire to see justice enacted, a desire for altered states of consciousness, magical thinking, assuming freewill, and so on.

That sort of stuff tends to lead people into religion, I think.

It's hard to think of a way to gain the psychological benefits of religion without its drawbacks and falsehoods.

With that, here is another thing I just thought of about God, and free will itself.

Some people say that God granted humans free will. With that, with what I said before in my initial post...

I think free will is just another means for God, or at least the people believing in God, to get a hold of people and, say, brainwash them into following religion. With how the human mind works, brainwashing can be easy to do to humans. Still, we are not unlike animals, and with that, we may seem to be different; and we may have some differences mentally altogether, but not to the point of having actual free will, which is an illusion in the end, is it not?

[FrustratedFool]

I agree.  

I think most people have a psychological predisposition to certain things, like ascribing agency to events, believing their mind is separate to their body, being scared of death, thinking of morality as being something objective and external or absolute, desiring meaning and purpose, finding patterns, a strong desire to see justice enacted, a desire for altered states of consciousness, magical thinking, assuming freewill, and so on.

That sort of stuff tends to lead people into religion, I think.

It's hard to think of a way to gain the psychological benefits of religion without its drawbacks and falsehoods.

I think free will is just another means for God, or at least the people believing in God, to get a hold of people and, say, brainwash them into following religion. With how the human mind works, brainwashing can be easy to do to humans. Still, we are not unlike animals, and with that, we may seem to be different; and we may have some differences mentally altogether, but not to the point of having actual free will, which is an illusion in the end, is it not?

What does God mean in the first part of that paragraph?

If you mean that people are generally easy to manipulate, especially given their psychological predispositions, then I agree. We are.