Free Will is a sign if God's inescapable weakness

[John V]

humans have actually learnt how to get better and better and less violent over the centuries.

Your friend should have just challenged you to quantify this premise.

[Edwardo Piet]

I think you misunderstand the purpose of free will in the religious narrative, OP.  It's not there so that we can learn something (some would go so far as to tell you it's not there at all, in the narrative - for another time).  It;s there to circumscribe the borders of moral culpability for obeisance to social norms purported to derive from divine authority.  It exists solely to provide a rationalization for righteousness of divine condemnation....but, much more commonly, for the very real and very earthly punishments man seeks to dole out in god's stead.  Ancient religions, or modern secular legal systems - it's purpose is the same.  A useful fiction.

It's existence or lack thereof says nothing about gods, it really never had anything to do with gods in the first place.  Supposing we find a demonstration of the complete vacuity of the concept tomorrow (this is assuming we don't have it today for no reason other than discussion), the religious will simply go back to claiming that we do not have free will.  That their scriptures always knew this.  That all is and all will be as god wills, and our only true choice in any matter is to obey...and, perhaps...we don't even have a choice in that.

I'm actually of the opinion that belief in contra-causal free will overall causes more hatred and revenge fuelled violence and killing than the most extreme behavior of all religions combined.

Unless you count the fact that it may have itself came from religion. I think it might not have done though, actually I think in all likelihood it predates religion by a long way. When we don't know the true causes of human behavior and we're aware of our own general abilities it's only natural to assume that we are self-causing agents. It's just a lack of analysis. Another example of our so-called "common sense" failing us.

And it may seem benign at first, but it's used to justify not only hatred as a whole but also the most grotesquely barbaric behavior. It also justifies arrogance. When people are full of themselves it's often because they take ultimate credit when no ultimate credit is due. The dunning kruger effect, etc. We credit both ourselves and others far too much, rather than focusing on important things like deterring and mitigating harm.

[Catholic_Lady]

You dont believe in God, so why concern yourself with what He's like?

Anyway, there have been a ton of threads here about free will and why God granted it to us. There was just one recently that I'll try to find and post here.

I doubt any of those threads are as convincing as my thread here.

Sorry to break it to you, but it's nothing we haven't heard before.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm actually of the opinion that belief in contra-causal free will overall causes more hatred and revenge fuelled violence and killing than the most extreme behavior of all religions combined.

Unless you count the fact that it may have itself came from religion. I think it might not have done though,  actually I think in all likelihood it predates religion by a long way. When we don't know the true causes of human behavior and we're aware of our own general abilities it's only natural to assume that we are self-causing agents. It's just a lack of analysis. Another example of our so-called "common sense" failing us.

IDK.  Most of the faiths that predate the abrahamic one express a pronounced sense of fatalism, and at the dawn of the abrahamic faith they don't appear to have believed that they had free will either.  We can;t really know what people thought about the subject before these traditions are written down, but by their earliest writings..if people -did- believe in free will in some prehistoric past they'd since moved away from it and began the theological spiral into nonsense we see today.   

And it may seem benign at first, but it's used to justify not only hatred as a whole but also the most grotesquely barbaric behavior. It also justifies arrogance. When people are full of themselves it's often because they take ultimate credit when no ultimate credit is due. The dunning kruger effect, etc. We credit both ourselves and others far too much, rather than focusing on important things like deterring and mitigating harm.

Here again I think it's more a disparity between systematic ideology and common sense appraisals or even our own experience.  It's not uncommon to hear people exclaim that they (or the other person) just couldn't help themselves.  Or for us to express vast bewilderment at why we would do the ridiculous shit we do.  It very much seems like free will is a tool for codification more than an observation on the state of our decisions...and I think it has an effect in societies or people who've been raised to accept it of granting it more credence than we naturally might. We might have had a less fanciful view of ourselves, at one point..or we may not even have had thoughts about it, it being a non-cognitive.

Long lists of taboos are a more direct approach to mitigating harm than assigning responsibility. We were coming up with taboos long before we thought that everyone was somehow directly responsible for their every freely made choice. It seems as though we weren;t counting on people to freely make the right choice..but to remove them from situations, and remove situations from our societies. Can't do the bad thing if you have no opportunity.

[Edwardo Piet]

Belief in the delusion of agent causation can only cause harm. Believing we are as responsible as we in fact are is helpful, believing we are absolutely ultimately super-responsible when we are not cannot be helpful. Punishing someone proportionally to their wrongdoing to deter them from causing further harm is helpful, punishing someone barbarically and excessively "Because the bastard deserves it" cannot be helpful.

The problem with the delusion of free will is even if people who don't believe they have free will use that as an excuse to misbehave, it doesn't change the fact that they still really didn't ultimately cause their own behavior nor did they cause their loss of belief in the delusion of free will, or even the fact that they used that as an excuse. Even if a belief in a delusion has good consequences that's an empty point when you don't even choose to believe or not believe in that delusion. The funniest thing about the quote by the comedian Emo Philips where he says "I’m not a fatalist, but even if I were what could I do about it?" is that there's some truth behind that irony.

[SteveII]

5. This then has a surprising consequence; why would God need to give humans the chance to learn by free will, if God was smart enough to make perfect beings without the need to learn by trial and error? It implies that if free will is God given, God is non omniscient/non omnipotent in a similar way to how machine learning researchers are non omniscient, and therefore make smart software that need to learn by trial/error to get better at tasks!!!

***your font, your bold

First, where did you get that God attempted to make a perfect being? Do you realize that a perfect being would have to have perfect knowledge? Even if we took this to mean that a human would have at least all the appropriate knowledge it is capable of having, that means that no one could ever have been a child, no one would ever have to learn anything, there would be no science. Your whole argument seems to be:

1. God's goal was to make perfect humans with free will
2. A perfect human would have perfect knowledge
3. Humans do not have perfect knowledge
4. Therefore God is not omniscient/omnipotent

• I think there are at least two problems with #1, First, you have not demonstrated how a biologically reproducing race could have perfect knowledge; and second, that was not God's goal
  
• #2 a perfect human may very well not have perfect knowledge because knowledge (especially as your related to the "machine learning") is only a small part of what it means to be human. What about childhood innocence, pleasure, experiences, learning for the sake of learning, relationships, self-sacrifice, fulfillment, love, etc.?
  
• #1 and #2 have defeaters so the conclusion in #4 is not supported. 
  

Second, your entire underlying assumption is probably faulty. Perhaps learning by trial and error is better than being "programmed".

---

I actually got my theist friend so riled up, that she ended up saying her God was both omniscient/omnipotent, and limited. (I've never heard her say that God was limited before... It was a contradiction that was easy for her to see, although she didn't admit it...)

I think that is exactly what we have when we discuss free will. God is omniscient, omnipotent, and limited. Free will entails that God has subordinated control of some things. Look at that, I wasn't even riled when I said it. Don't confuse the fact that a Christian might not have an answer with there not being an answer.

[Angrboda]

Do you realize that a perfect being would have to have perfect knowledge?

Bollocks. Tell me, Steve, what does it mean to say that something is "perfect"?

[Catholic_Lady]

Do you realize that a perfect being would have to have perfect knowledge?

Bollocks.  Tell me, Steve, what does it mean to say that something is "perfect"?

per·fect
adjective

ˈpərfikt/

1. 1.
   having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.
   "she strove to be the perfect wife"
   synonyms:
   ideal, model, without fault, faultless, flawless, consummate, quintessential, exemplary, best, ultimate, copybook; More
   
   2.
   absolute; complete (used for emphasis)."a perfect stranger"synonyms:absolute, complete, total, real, out-and-out, thorough, thoroughgoing, downright, utter, sheer, arrant, unmitigated, unqualified, veritable, in every respect, unalloyed"she felt like a perfect idiot"verb

[size=undefined]
pərˈfekt/[/size]

1. 1.
   make (something) completely free from faults or defects, or as close to such a condition as possible.
   "he's busy perfecting his bowling technique"
   synonyms:
   improve, better, polish (up), hone, refine, put the finishing/final touches to, brush up, fine-tune
   "he's busy perfecting his bowling technique"
   

-https://www.google.com/search?q=perfect+definition&oq=perfect+def&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l4.5772j1j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 

[Edwardo Piet]

having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.

Desirability is subjective and good in what way?

[John V]

Perfect is generally too vague for meaningful discussion.