A thing about religious (and other) people and the illusion of free will

[Thumpalumpacus]

If you’re a good person only because of the threat of eternal punishment or the hope of eternal reward, you’re not a good person.

Boru

That's the thing: it really isn't about extorting good behavior. It's about extorting worship, which would rather make that deity a massive douchopotamus.

[Ahriman]

If you’re a good person only because of the threat of eternal punishment or the hope of eternal reward, you’re not a good person.

Boru

Well no, of course not. But we're not talking about "eternal punishment" or "eternal reward", God wouldn't allow either of those things. Religion would, but God wouldn't. And "religion" and "God" are not the same thing, even if only speaking in a hypothetical sense.

[The Grand Nudger]

There's absolutely nothing preventing a god from being exactly as malevolent as gods are often portrayed to be..in reality. That should be an instructive fact....we don't often think about it, but we're pretty damned fortunate that no all powerful djinn exists to want to soul forge us.

That, if it were a real thing, could be pretty horrific. That flesh eating bacteria really doesn't exist accidentally or incidentally, it exists to eat us, to teach us, to improve us by whatever metrics the creator god of flesh eating bacteria has in mind. The dangers in the cosmos immediately multiply. It's not just the environmental shit we have to deal with, we didn't just forget to take our antibiotics, we also have to dodge the active bolts of a nutball god. A god who, even if we took our antibiotics, would invent some other damned thing to eat us just so it could continue to mold the clay to whatever private end it had. Incomprehensible and tragic to it's human subjects....even with everything going right™.

[ShinyCrystals]

But that doesn't happen. Like, it happens if you consider God to be the malevolent entity He is made out to be in some religions. But it wouldn't happen in reality.

That's because "God" doesn't exist in reality. I take it you're unfamiliar with the phrase "for the sake of argument"?

Of course, he does not exist.

God is a made up entity who comes from a psychological need for people to look up to someone and a psychological need for power and controlling others.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think we have to allow that it comes from good things too. The real fucked up bit about "god" isn't the charlatans or the theocrats who attempt to control or horde power. It's the people who want good things but for the choice of their implement never end up producing anything but misery.

Shitty people set out to to bad shit is one thing. Normal people set out to do decent shit and arrive at genocide...another.

[ShinyCrystals]

I think we have to allow that it comes from good things too.  The real fucked up bit about "god" isn't the charlatans or the theocrats who attempt to control or horde power.  It's the people who want good things but for the choice of their implement never end up producing anything but misery.

Shitty people set out to to bad shit is one thing.  Normal people set out to do decent shit and arrive at genocide...another.

Yeah, I was focusing on the bad parts for some reason. That said, you are right.

Either way, though, beliefs about God and things about religion do tend to be nonsensical or just...heavily flawed. Maybe not all things, of course, but like stuff that is in the bible and all, there are some contradictions here and there, right?

[Bucky Ball]

”An enormous portion of cognitive activity is non-conscious, figuratively speaking, it could be 99 percent; we probably will never know precisely how much is outside awareness.” (Dr. Emmanuel Donchin, director of the Laboratory for Cognitive Psychophysiology at the University of Illinois).

That precludes "free will". In general the percentage generally is said to be about 95 %.
It all depends on the definition which still comes from Medieval Theology. There, it means that one can hold in consciousness AT THE TIME the decision is made,
ALL the elements of a choice, (defined in Moral Theology to establish what a "sin" is). That has been proven by neuroscience to be false.

No one can "believe" in god who sincerely thinks the concept is total rubbish, that the concept is incoherent, AND Christianity at least agrees :

"For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, it is not from works, so that no-one may boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that in them we might walk. (Eph 2:8-10)

[h4ym4n]

If you’re a good person only because of the threat of eternal punishment or the hope of eternal reward, you’re not a good person.

Boru

To be a good person you need to be a horrible Christian

[ShinyCrystals]

”An enormous portion of cognitive activity is non-conscious, figuratively speaking, it could be 99 percent; we probably will never know precisely how much is outside awareness.” (Dr. Emmanuel Donchin, director of the Laboratory for Cognitive Psychophysiology at the University of Illinois).

That precludes "free will". In general the percentage generally is said to be about 95 %.
It all depends on the definition which still comes from Medieval Theology. There, it means that one can hold in consciousness AT THE TIME the decision is made,
ALL the elements of a choice, (defined in Moral Theology to establish what a "sin" is). That has been proven by neuroscience to be false.

No one can "believe" in god who sincerely thinks the concept is total rubbish, that the concept is incoherent, AND Christianity at least agrees :

"For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, it is not from works, so that no-one may boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that in them we might walk. (Eph 2:8-10)

I thought so about free will.

It is not like determinism or even probability for that matter. I don't think free will is a think as I was trying to explain like neuroscience says it is not.

But yeah, religion does have a lot of BS. I do not think Jesus Christ even existed at all, did he not?


But yeah, if I understand what "precludes", as in "precludes free will" means, and I bet I do, I am sure what I was previously talking about or was trying to say before about how the mind works prevents free will from being a thing. In fact, one of the reasons, and I mean one out of perhaps many, as to why people believe in free will is that they want to believe they really are free, and they want to think that they can freely choose even when they actually don't. What other reasons could there be for people believing in free will?

[Bucky Ball]

”An enormous portion of cognitive activity is non-conscious, figuratively speaking, it could be 99 percent; we probably will never know precisely how much is outside awareness.” (Dr. Emmanuel Donchin, director of the Laboratory for Cognitive Psychophysiology at the University of Illinois).

That precludes "free will". In general the percentage generally is said to be about 95 %.
It all depends on the definition which still comes from Medieval Theology. There, it means that one can hold in consciousness AT THE TIME the decision is made,
ALL the elements of a choice, (defined in Moral Theology to establish what a "sin" is). That has been proven by neuroscience to be false.

No one can "believe" in god who sincerely thinks the concept is total rubbish, that the concept is incoherent, AND Christianity at least agrees :

"For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, it is not from works, so that no-one may boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that in them we might walk. (Eph 2:8-10)

I thought so about free will.

It is not like determinism or even probability for that matter. I don't think free will is a think as I was trying to explain like neuroscience says it is not.

But yeah, religion does have a lot of BS. I do not think Jesus Christ even existed at all, did he not?


But yeah, if I understand what "precludes", as in "precludes free will" means, and I bet I do, I am sure what I was previously talking about or was trying to say before about how the mind works prevents free will from being a thing. In fact, one of the reasons, and I mean one out of perhaps many, as to why people believe in free will is that they want to believe they really are free, and they want to think that they can freely choose even when they actually don't. What other reasons could there be for people believing in free will?

They *need* to accept their theological system is real. But seriously, that is an excellent question !