The Christian God Does Violate Human Free Will

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Is not every single occurrence that lies outside of human control a violation of free will? Any random dirtbag that gets struck by lightning is an infallible argument against human agency.

That's a very interesting point. Let's say that Seamus has given up his trifling ways. He's not longer going to be an atheist. After looking over various prospecti, he opts for Catholicism. He takes instruction for about a year, does everything he supposed to do. Then, on his way to his baptismal ceremony, he is run down and killed by the Bolivian National Unicycle squad. Seamus - through no faults of his own and no exercise of free will - snuffs it without being baptized in Holy Mother Church, and gets to spend the next few aeons in purgatorial gloom.

Funny old thing, free will.

Boru

[ApeNotKillApe]

Don't even need to get into extremes with it, just take any scenario where weather conditions have forced people to alter their behavior in even the most minor way and you have a clear violation of free will.

[robvalue]

Yup.

It's clearly not free. I can't do close to 100% of the things I would like to do. I can barely do anything.

But the remaining ~100% of things I want to do wouldn't hurt anyone. So my free will could be massively multiplied by god having allowed them. And within this teeny, weeny pool of options I actually have, he could take away the option to maim animals, rape children, stick pokers up people's arses, and so on. I wouldn't even notice, because I'm not interested in those things.

The idea that to have free will you have to have bad, harmful options is absurd.

We can "choose to follow god or not follow him", fine. I choose not to. Why am I further allowed to choose whether I rape a child? Why am I given harmful options with which to display my contempt for him? I just want to live my life and help others live theirs happily. I can not follow him without having to do sick stuff to make the point.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Some of the more esoteric franchises of theism try to get round this by creating a distinction between 'moral evil' and 'natural evil'. For example, willful sinning (theft, adultery, murder, perjury, and so forth) are moral evils, because humans have the option to not engage in this behaviour. When, on the other hand, your village of fisherfolk is buried in a mudslide, this is a natural evil, which means it was going to happen irrespective of human choice.

This has always struck me as pretty ad hoc. If natural evils don't violate free will, then why do preachers of all stripes consign earthquakes, mudslides, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and the like to 'God's will' or 'God's plan'? If God plans for me to get struck by lightning, and God is the causative agent of moral law, then - not only is my free will violated - but the so called 'natural evil' immediately becomes 'moral evil'. There is no effective difference between the two.

Boru

[robvalue]

Good point, that's another one for my list!

[ApeNotKillApe]

Also, nobody had any choice at all in taking part in this little experiment Yahweh is running.

[robvalue]

Yeah, good point!

Fuck him. If he wants entertainment, he can just watch TV or play Xbox like the rest of us. Why drag real conscious life forms into his twisted playtime?

[ApeNotKillApe]

Yeah, fuck that non-existent prick. If he was real I'd kick him right in his scrote, if it existed.

[ApeNotKillApe]

Hitchens described the monotheist's idea of agency as "Of course we have free will, the boss says so."

[abaris]

You know, folks. There's one point where I'm leaning to the radical atheist side. And this is it.

Some of us discussing the free will issue, as if there really was a divine entity enforcing it. It's men made like everything else in religion.

And here's why I take issue with that. Think, I said it before at some point in another thread. If there's the appearance of discussing god's actions, it opens opportunities for that theist talking point of us just being angry at god.