(June 25, 2015 at 3:19 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I don't know what we would be if we didn't have free will. Think about that for a second. This would mean that we would have no control over our bodies or our minds. We would just be empty shells... hand puppets. We would have no emotions. We would be nothing. I would not exist, and neither would you.It seems as if you are saying that free will is our ability to make decisions and think for ourselves. It's what drives one person to decide he will be a journalist, and another to decide that she will learn to play the guitar. It's what makes chocolate chip ice cream your favorite dessert, but strawberry cheesecake your husband's preference. It's why you love to wear blue jeans instead of a skirt, or a big floppy hat instead of a baseball cap. Does that sound right? Those are the things that differentiate us from one another. Is that what free will does for us?
So yes, I'd consider this not existing at all, because that's what it would be.
With free will, we can exist. We still have the choice to try our best to live good lives and love others. I'd rather exist and take my chances with Hell, than not exist at all (which is basically what would mean if I had no free will.)
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
