God's Will and Human Freedom
I am sure that most of you, weather you be Atheists of Theists have heard a whole lot about God's Will. This is thrown out like verbal diarrhea every time that someone dies or a natural disaster occurs. I have often questioned why people are so quick to say that a kid that gets caught in the crossfire of a gang shooting received a "gift" and that it was God's Will that she get shot and killed in a park. How is that a gift? What proof is there that she is in a better place? Who are you to make such claims? It may sound nice and comforting at the time, but it is not all that it is cracked up to be. As the title of this post implies, I am going to be talking about God's will and our own freedom. Does God's Will take away our freedom?
To start let us look at the Frankfurt Cases. This is a thought experiment that involves two cases that are identical, except for one part.
Case 1
There are two men: Smith and Jones. Smith is pointing a gun at Jones and is deciding whether or not to shoot him. There is also an evil demon that COULD control the outcome. In this case Jones decides not to shoot Jones, however the evil demon forces Smith to pull the trigger and kill Jones.
Case 2
There are two men: Smith and Jones. Smith is pointing a gun at Jones and is deciding whether or not to shoot him. There is also an evil demon that COULD control the outcome. In this case Smith decides to shoot Jones with his own free will, and the evil demon does nothing.
Take a good look at these cases. What do you notice? First off, they are identical except for one part, which is where the evil demon comes in. The other thing is that the outcome was the same, but the method of getting to that outcome was different. If it was Smith's choice to shoot Jones or if the evil demon commanded him to, the result was the exact same. So, my question is, if "God's Will be done" then the end result will always be the same. So are we really free to make our own decision? If we are, what is the point of making them if it is just going to achieve God's Will in the end?
Another thing that I question is how a person would know what God's Will is. I really don't have a concrete answer for how one would definitively know what God's Will is, but I can speculate as to why it would be appealing to chalk up the bad things in life it "it was God's Will".
The same sort of thing happens (in someone's mind) when there is a conspiracy about something like 9/11. Sometimes when something horrible happens it scares people, which is normal. However, being humans it is in our nature to want an explanation of why something happened. In the case of conspiracy theories Jodi Dean says,
People hate thinking about, in the flash on an eye terrorist bomber...
I think that the same thing happens in the minds of Theists when a natural disaster, like Hurricane Katrina, occurs. It is much more comforting to think that there is a plan in place. People don't like to think that bad things can just happen, they would rather be optimistic about some plan that would take them to a better place (heaven supposedly, but I'll save that for another post). Michael Martin said it best in his book Atheism: A Philosophical Justification -
If pessimism is justified by the evidence, then we must be pessimistic. If we are optimistic when pessimism is justified, we are irrational.
If you are a Theist or an Atheist, please leave your comments and opinions, I would love to know more about the topic from all perspectives. Bear in mind, however, I will research what you say if I think that you haven't done your research.
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Comment by archaeopteryx on March 19, 2013 at 10:01pm -
@Angela - you and I have argued too often for you to worry about offending me, you never have, but if I AM being irrational, I would like to know where and when, so that I can correct it.
RE: "if somebody gives a compliment, somebody else pretends to spit to break an oncoming curse, just in case." - yeah, I can just see why you wouldn't want to give THAT up, makes me want to start saving up my spit, gotta get rid of those curses --
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Comment by Unseen on March 19, 2013 at 10:33pm -
@Ryan B Wars are generally not fought because people are "forced" to live in proximity to other people. They are fought over land, over resources, over religious differences, to avenge past defeats. Stuff like that.
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Comment by Unseen on March 19, 2013 at 10:40pm
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@archaeopteryx Hate to spring this on you Unseen, but humans ARE animals --
Since that was what I was saying, you're not exactly revealing anything to me.
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Comment by archaeopteryx on March 19, 2013 at 10:48pm
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That's an excellent video Angela, it should be available to everyone - their superstitions, however, were based on ignorance.
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Comment by archaeopteryx on March 19, 2013 at 11:03pm
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@Unseen - all too often with your posts, it's not easy to tell. Speaking of "ego death," if anyone's ego would benefit from it....
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Comment by Angela Evangelia on March 19, 2013 at 11:13pm
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Im glad you enjoyed it archaeopteryx
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Comment by archaeopteryx on March 19, 2013 at 11:16pm
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This will take us even further back in time --
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Comment by Unseen on March 19, 2013 at 11:20pm
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@Jimmy A lot depends upon what you mean by "the source of religion." Do you mean historically where some dude founded Judaism or Taoism or do you mean the source of religion for an individual person long since then?
I discovered the source of my own religious belief by looking back at my own life. Back when I believed it was because I was raised around believers. They believed for much the same reason I did. I think the day I mostly lost my religion was the day I realized I could draw a map and pretty much predict with fairly satisfactory accuracy what people believed by noting where they lived, if not by the nation they lived in, then by the region or neighborhood. Religious choice is 90% geography.
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The Chimp Worship clip is very good.
I think it shows that the behaviour innate.
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Comment by archaeopteryx on March 20, 2013 at 12:11am
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But in it, we can see how it may well have been in our own earlier days, and we can see what we have since made of it, having transferred that power from the strongest member of the group, to some ethereal, invisible sky fairy, that the transfer was irrational.
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