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| I know that some of you will reject this out of hand. I will tell you that I understand this, because I know that you are not capable of accepting this line of reasoning. It is simply to foreign and too contrary to your primary set of beliefs.
Of course, that's my point, really. There is a myth that free will means that I can choose anything at any time. I would suggest that this is an untenable position, without making some assumptions about how the will affects the world that are difficult to uphold.
I think most of us will agree that our choices are limited. Unless we believe that by simple force of will we can change reality (teleportation, instant creation of an object, etc...) we have to face the fact that our choices are limited by reality:
I cannot walk out in my driveway and choose to drive a Porche to work that morning, since there is no Porche within a 10 mile radius. I cannot choose to give my children a hug in the morning, as I have no children.
We are also limited by our physical limitations. I cannot choose to flap my arms and fly, no matter how hard I will it. I, personally, cannot choose to successfully run a marathon, tomorrow. With my health problems, I probably never will be able to do so. My wife cannot choose to walk around freely without her glasses or contacts. I cannot choose to have naturally brown eyes.
There are also mental limitations:
We cannot choose an option we do not know exists, for instance.
I don't think any of us would disagree with the above statements. We all understand that our choices are environmentally, and at least to some extent genetically, limited. Let me draw you to the subjects of hypnosis, behavioral conditioning, and brain washing. Sometimes, choices are not just limited, but indeed guided, by things beyond our control. Pavlov's dogs had no choice about their salivation. A well trained dog has no choice about it's actions given certain stimuli. Humans, in the same way, form habits which are well beyond conscious choice. An obsessive compulsive person often does not have a choice in how they respond to a situation. A person who is brain washed, or worse has "learned helplessness", is now conditioned to chose in a particular direction when presented with options.
But there are other more subtle differences that limit and affect our choices: culture conditions us to choose in a particular direction. Not just "trivial choices" like buying SUV's, but moral choices, like support of family have strong cultural components. (Look at tribal culture, versus asian culture, versus western culture.) I agree that there are exceptions in every case. I would suggest, however, that if you were to look at the life of an iconoclast, you can find significant contributing influences. It was not an arbitrarily "free" decision to throw away all of ones life and conditioning.
There are very few choices that are made without a motivating influence. Present a person with Pepsi and Coke, they will choose their preference. Present a person with identical glasses of cola and they will resort to more basic means of choice: picking the one on their left because they are left handed, picking the one on the right because they picked left last time.
My favorite non-free choice is the choice a person makes to disprove me by making an "arbitrary", "free" choice. Really, this choice is motivated by the choice to disprove me, and a history of doing things in a fashion other than the chosen path.
It has been suggested, previously, by someone that in no circumstances, in an infinite set of universes with infinite possibilities, would they ever chose to molest their children. While I find this a laudable resolve, I find it unbelievable that a person would not choose to molest their children in the following extreme situation:
Their universe will be destroyed if they do not
The whole world society considers child molestation to be a good thing
The children ask constantly to be molested
They will receive countless riches, fame, everything their heart desires, and an infinite life to enjoy it all for doing so
Their enemies will all be wiped off the face of the earth
A credible prophet of God has told them that there will be no moral or ethical condemnation for doing so, that God will be pleased
All religious and moral teaching in the history of that universe states that child molestation is a wonderful thing
And, once given an infinite set of universes, not only does that exist as a possibility, there is not just one, but an infinite set of universes in which that exact choice does come up. (Try doing permutations with an infinite number of parameters, and you'll understand).
The point is, free choice is not free at all. Free choice is guided by a huge number of factors, including our current world view and principles of cognitive dissonance.
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| Since I've seen this topic come up, and have left some notes in relation to it, I thought I would explain myself a little better, here, in case anyone actually comes to look...
As has been indicated by William_Of_Baskerville, in a forum response for his blog at http://win_corduan.tripod.com/discussion-area/, unless you're a universalist or have what I would consider a non-biblical view of God, you don't get very far on this issue.
If you are Arminian, you have to deal with the following:
1. God, having infinite foreknowledge, knew who would choose him.
2. God, having complete self-determination chose to limit man's chances to choose him, and make choosing him the only way to salvation.
.'. God, knowing his choice would lead to not only hell for some people, but hell for specific individuals, still chose to go through with his plan before the start of time.
Sounds like an awful lot like predestination to hell, to me.
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| This is a debate I generally stay far, far away from. However, I just felt that I had to throw something out, here... A while back I tried messing with a game called "DarwinBots." This game uses a simple scripting language and then applies "mutations" to the script of individuals in the language, to simulate evolutionary process. I was very curious to see how this would work, so I set up various scenarios to try and determine how competitive or predator/prey species would interact. I found, of course, that the game ended up zero-sum. Instead of achieving balance, one species always ended up eliminating the others. I also found that "favorable" mutations were not necessarily long-term successes. Explosive population growth at the expense of self-defense, etc. So, the game lost it's charm and I put it away, now armed with some reservations about evolutionary process, from seeing an example of how fragile it is. But, I told myself, this is a computer game and in no way indicative of the way true "evolutionary process" works. Little did I know that the same experiments I was performing in a computer, were taking place in real life:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/06/15/predators_ani_02.html?category=animals&guid=20070615120030
Of course, the tone of this article is carefully neutral, and does not make any conclusions. But, looking at the data presented, I think it acts as a pointer that while natural selection is still a viable theory, expanding to a system of large-scale, long-term evolution has serious problems.
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| Jesus told the parable of a widow who kept harrassing a corrupt judge until he would give her justice. He explained that if even a corrupt judge will yield to perseverence, we should persevere in our prayers. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm under the impression that God is so much better than the corrupt judge, that he doesn't need to be told about something more than once. After all, it's not like he forgets. You can't bully God. He's definitely got more patience than you. So what is going on here? Why does God tell us to persevere in prayer? I think that what Christ is trying to get through to us is this: God is listening to us and hears us. When frustrations come up, even if it's the same frustration that's been hitting you your entire life, bring it up. Keep up the hope and keep interacting with God. Don't withdraw from him. | | |
| I'm going to try to address two modern political myths here:
#1. World War 2 was the end of Nationalism as a political factor.
#2. American foreign policy is the cause of anti-American sentiment.
If you take a world history class, chances are that you will be taught that strong nationalism was the major force that empowered the Fascist movements and led to World War II. You will also be left with the impression that nationalism for the most part died with the Fascists. If you listen to the news and pundits of the past 5 years, you will be told that American foreign policy is solely responsible for any anti-American sentiment across the globe. Not only do I believe this isn't true, I believe the two are linked. While nationalism has died in terms of military expansion of a "great nation," the majority of people around the world still identify heavily with their country. Instead of expressing it in terms of expansion though, they express it in terms of comparison. This is where anti-American sentiment comes in. Have you ever sat with a die-hard fan of a sports team that is not leading the rankings? Chances are, you will hear an explanation of how the number one team either cheats, plays dirty, or has some sort of unfair advantage. You may just hear endless criticism of how this highly successful team achieves their success. In the same way, America, which stands out as the political/military power to be reckoned with globaly receives criticism from across the globe. They criticize us, because they are watching us. They criticize us, because of their nationalism. They criticize because their team is in their minds "behind in the standings" in economic or other terms. Next time you see someone on the news saying, "Down with America," think "Thank you." After all, that person is really thinking that down is the only way we have to go.
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