(September 27, 2013 at 11:48 am)Deidre32 Wrote: I don’t care for the phrase ‘free will.’ It’s religion’s way of excusing bad choices. Our lives are made up of choices. Some of those choices can be affected certainly by events that could have been out of our control. (example, you were abused as a child, perhaps now you’ve become very guarded as an adult, and therefore, many of your ‘choices’ stem from that worldview) Free will is a meaningless, trite phrase in my opinion. Of course we have ‘free will.’ It’s called choice. With choices, come responsibility. Religious people will look at the world, and when bad things happen say…well, God gave us ‘free will.’ No shit we have free will, but it’s just a matter of semantics. Have never understood the need to attach a Diety to my ability to make bad or good choices. The same religious person will say when a person makes a good choice, ‘’That’s God at work.’’ When that same person makes a bad/immoral choice …’’Well, God gave us free will.’’ I dislike this idea, because it implies that if there exists a god, he must be a puppeteer and we are the puppets, but only when something positive happens.
Making 'choices' implies some kind of cognitive process. The question of 'Free will' in this particular case is essentially about how much conscious control we have over that process and how much is subconscious.
You are quite right, religion has invested heavily in the concept of free will, because this gives Theologians an excuse to pass off poor behaviour as 'not the work of god' and good behaviour as divinely influenced. Without 'free will' god is reduced to some kind of twisted weirdo that from time to time makes people commit morally reprehensible acts for his/her/its own amusement.
To quote a great man 'This is, of course, a load of fetid dingo's kidneys'.
MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
