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Post date: Aug 26, 2016 3:16:49 AM
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Q: Do we even have free will?
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
— Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125, tr. Walter Kaufmann
* 9/11, mass shootings, suicide bombers, terrorism, murder, rape, etc. all really do not matter. We should all just forget and move on as I will explain.
* Free will either exists and some people choose to do bad things and hurt others or free will does not exist and some people have no choice but to do bad things and hurt others
Free will (choice): A) Exists, B) Does not exist, our decisions entirely products of chemistry, physics, and genetics, B) Is an illusion
Do we have moral responsibility for our personal actions ? A) Yes B) No
* What is wrong with the world? Are humans basically good or evil? were we originally good but something went wrong? How bad is the flaw? can this flaw be corrected? if so, how? is it by overcoming ignorance through education and awareness? or is the flaw an illusion? do we contain all that is necessary for choosing to be good or bad? is evil just a social construct, having no objective reality? is morality relative, differing from one culture to another?
* Why evil?
Better question, why isn't there more? If atheism is the correct view of the world, then we should expect more murders, suffering, ”evil”.
* If atheism (secular humanism) is true: we evolved from non-living, non-rational matter; no one has the ultimate authority to decide what is right and wrong for everyone in all places at all times; it's all relative; in the end, it doesn’t matter how anyone lives, because our ultimate fates are all the same; immaterial souls do not exist and there is no free will at all (we are directed by our DNA in response to the world; our emotions, thoughts, intentions, and behaviors are determined by chemical reactions).
“The phrase "God is dead" does not mean that Nietzsche believed in an actual God who first existed and then died in a literal sense. Rather, it conveys his view that the Christian God is no longer a credible source of absolute moral principles. Nietzsche recognizes the crisis that the death of God represents for existing moral assumptions: "When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident... By breaking one main concept out of Christianity, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands."[6] This is why in "The Madman", a passage which primarily addresses nontheists (especially atheists), the problem is to retain any system of values in the absence of a divine order.
The death of God is a way of saying that humans are no longer able to believe in any such cosmic order since they themselves no longer recognize it. The death of God will lead, Nietzsche says, not only to the rejection of a belief of cosmic or physical order but also to a rejection of absolute values themselves — to the rejection of belief in an objective and universal moral law, binding upon all individuals. In this manner, the loss of an absolute basis for morality leads to nihilism [life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value].” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead)
If you are a true honest atheist (and a moral relativist), then there no logical reason to be upset by 9/11 or other “evil” events .
“Never Forget” is inconsistent with your claimed worldview and should really be “It does not matter”.
We all have a belief system, whether we know it or not, and our lifestyle often contradicts the beliefs we claim to hold (there is a difference between what one practices and what one professes). What a person really believes determines how they live/ behave. Our actions and behavior are the most reliable index to our beliefs (If we are convinced that certain propositions are true, we will behave accordingly). “Dissonance”, a 15th century
term that means a lack of agreement; especially: inconsistency between the beliefs one holds or between one's actions and one's beliefs — compare cognitive dissonance and an instance of such inconsistency or disagreement (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dissonance).
I will argue that there is no such thing as a true honest Atheist. There are many people who claim to hold an atheistic belief system or worldview but close examination will reveal that in practicality, their lifestyle contradicts their claims. Some people who say they are Atheists (claims) are in practice theists (behavior).
Ultimately there are only two options to morality if it exists (because of the LNC and LEM): (1) morality is absolute: a moral rule stands outside of one’s opinion (absolute) that judges us and exists whether we agree with it or not (objective) and it applies to all people at all times (transcendent) or
(2) morality is relative: to each person’s opinion (specific to each person or culture) (Morality as a Clue to God. Greg Koulkl.
http://www.str.org/articles/morality-as-a-clue-to-god…). Law, morality and human rights are either created or discovered; absolute and objective or relative. How do you determine if any action committed by a person (or persons, nation) is morally right or wrong? feelings (individual), majority vote, universal law or something else?
A true honest atheists would have to be a moral relativist. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist (both atheists and theists agree on this. J.L. Mackie, the well-known atheist, admitted that if values are objective then God would exist. Nietzsche argued that without God values are simply human constructs. On a naturalistic view, what is so special about humans?
If atheism (secular humanism) is right and there is no God and no universal moral law, then there is no basis for condemning any actions. If secular humanism is true: we evolved from non-living, non-rational matter; no one has the ultimate authority to decide what is right and wrong for everyone in all places at all times; it's all relative; in the end, it doesn’t matter how anyone lives, because our ultimate fates are all the same; immaterial souls do not exist and there is no free will at all (we are directed by our DNA in response to the world; our emotions, thoughts, intentions, and behaviors are determined by chemical reactions). If atheism is true, There is no moral law: morality becomes utilitarian, pragmatic, subjective, emotive (Why I am not an Atheist. Lecture by Ravi Zacharias. www.rzim.org). Without God (an absolute and objective moral standard), morality becomes just a matter of personal, subjective tastes (relative) (Sophie's Dilemma: God, Goodness and Evil by Greg Koukl. www.str.org).
If morality is ultimately a matter of personal taste, then it's just your opinion what's good or bad, but it might not be my opinion and evil is also relative ( Bosnia, Rape and the Problem of Evil by Gregory Koukl. http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5145); if atheism is true, then nothing is disallowed and nothing can be wrong, every behavior is acceptable or neutral, then morality is really just human will and desire (Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God. Peter Kreeft. www.peterkreeft.com/topics-…/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm) and we have no moral standard against which human desires can be judged because every desire will come from the same ultimate source—purposeless, pitiless matter.
Therefore, a true honest atheists, in belief and practice, would logically not make moral judgments about other people’s moral choices; not complain about evil and suffering; not blame people or praise people for their moral choices; not claim that any situation is unfair or unjust; not attempt to improve their morality; not have meaningful discussions about morality; and a true honest atheist would not promote the obligation to be tolerant. See
Seven Things You Can’t Do as a Moral Relativist by by Greg Koukl at http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo1/koukl.php.
Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that...it is absurd to continually seek meaning in life when there is none, and it is absurd to hope for some form of continued existence after death given that the latter results in our extinction” - Albert Camus (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus).
If you are a skeptic or an atheist, do you wish life had meaning? If you are an atheist, are you glad that atheism is the truth? Why? Here are what some atheists have logically concluded about their worldview (adapted from Death and the Judgment to Come�: Pascal’s Beginning. http://credohouse.org/…/death-and-the-judgment-to-come-pasc…):
Hegesias of Cyrene, Greek philosopher who lived in the third century B.C., “didn’t think happiness was achievable in this life. Instead, he argued, our primary goal as humans should be to avoid pain and suffering. He wrote a “story about a man, lying on the ground, starving himself to death. His friends try to encourage him to want to live. But the starving man turns the tables on his friends. He lays out all the miseries of life and convinces them to commit suicide too! Hegesias’ lectures were banned at Alexandria because of the many resulting suicides.”
Blaise Pascal as well as other Christians and even atheists have argued similarly. After all, if there is no God; and everything ends in death, life is absurd. Ecclesiastes 1:2 says it well, “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”'
“That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his love and beliefs, are but the outcomes of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all our labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.” – atheist philosopher of the 20th century, Bertrand Russell
“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference…DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.” – Richard Dawkins.
“My question—that which at the age fifty brought me to the verge of suicide—was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man from the foolish child to the wisest elder. It was a question without an answer to which one cannot live. It was: ‘What will come of what I am doing today or tomorrow? What will come of my whole life? Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything?’ It can also be expressed thus: ‘Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?” - Leo Tolstoy
I am not trying to offend anyone I just want us all to attempt to live consistently between the claimed beliefs we claim to hold and between our actions and our claimed beliefs. There are also many people who say they are Christians but are really practical deists or atheists in their daily behavior.
Is what you say, claim, really how you live?
If one has NO choice in being born a certain way with particular inclination towards certain desires or behaviors (e.g., being born homosexual, attracted to same sex or same family member or with desire to change their gender) if it is all ultimately biologically (and uncontrollabley) determined, meaning that then they have NO choice (free will) in the matter much like choosing who your parents would be, where you would be born, or what your eye color would be, etc.
This makes sense if God does NOT exist:
* Q: Would you agree that if God did not exist, and the only objective laws in the universe were the laws of physics and chemistry, moral judgments would be meaningless and there would be no free will or moral responsibility (determinism and randomness would be true)? Unshakable Foundations by Norman Geisler and Bocchino Peter
1. Premise: If all that exists (reality, universe, person) is made up of entirely natural forces: matter, space, time and energy and nothing exists that is immaterial
a) Then people and animals are also directed by their DNA; one's emotions, thoughts, intentions, and behaviors are just determined by chemical reactions (genetically determined; a product of macro evolution); the laws of physics and chemistry and their environment
b) Then any behavior is really out of our control, we have no free will and so we can never be morally wrong or responsible and rationality and knowledge do not exist either.
* Fatalism (scientific determinism): our life and choices are totally and unalterably the product of an endless series of cause and effect (not responsible); naturalistic.Why is this wrong? Why can't they be "born that way"?
* “Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have. Free will is actually more than an illusion (or less), in that it cannot be made conceptually coherent. Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.” (Sam Harris, Free Will, (Free Press, New York, 2012), Page 5) 133. Freethinking Atheists are Oxymorons.
http://freakengministries.com/freethinking-atheists-are-ox…/?
Back off Atheists, We Were Born This Way
https://howtodefendyourfaith.wordpress.com/…/back-off-athe…/
“A world where God does not exist, is a world where all life is the product of unguided, biological and chemical processes. Everything we think, feel, and believe would be the product of some purely natural chain of events within our brains, which we have no control over. This is a view called determinism, which is really what an atheist is left with if they are to be consistent. The funny thing about this view, is that I have never, ever, ever, ever, ever……..EVER found one person who can hold it consistently…
Atheism = Determinism = No Free Will = Rationality, Good, Evil, Love, Consciousness etc are an illusion
Theism = Free Will = Rationality, Good, Evil, Love, Consciousness are actually real...
But for all the antagonistic, atheistic determinists out there who insist we have no free will, I have one request: Since your pre-determined thought processes told you we are all determined, please be a little more tolerant of all us silly Christians who didn’t get that lucky, and stop trying to change our minds, since we don’t have the ability to choose your view over ours anyway. We were born this way. Don’t try to change who we are. Don’t try to force your morality on us. Just accept us, and celebrate our unchosen, determined, self-identity. It’s the loving, tolerant thing to do after all. Since everyone keeps telling us this is what love really is, it would be quite hypocritical to do any different.”
if the above is true (if no God and no free will); then there are NO limits to what a person can identify themselves as; there are NO desires or behaviors that should not be embraced and allowed; all behavior is really relative and pluralistic.
Would you agree then that one can also claim that some people are born with the desire for anger, murder, theft, child abuse, rape, etc., and so should not be held personally responsible (no free will)?
Are these situations the same as people who have no choice in being born with same sex attraction and desire to change gender?
If yes, because in all these situations, one has no free will (no one has free will) because it is scientifically and genetically determined (uncontrollable).
This view is consistent with Atheism.
If no, because these things (e.g., murder, rape, etc.) are morally wrong and same sex attraction and gender are not morally wrong (according to them).
But this assumes that there is a difference between desires for murder and desires for the same sex and desire to changing gender
but why the difference? and it assumes that one has a choice to not murder but no choice in being attracted to sex or in the desire to change gender. Why does one have a choice or free will to do certain things, to fulfill certain desires and behaviors and not others?
Q: can you prove that one has no choice?
Assumes that certain desires are morally (and universally) wrong and so Implies a Moral Law Giver (God) or assumes that one has a choice in not murdering and so free will. and if free will exists, then God must exist. See below.
2. Premise: In our everyday life and in our judicial system, we assume that people have free will (their behavior is really in their control and can be morally and personally responsible) and that rationality and knowledge exists.
* people and animals are not just directed by their DNA
3. Conclusion: There must be something more than our physical being and DNA that is immaterial (transcending chemistry and physics) such as soul or spirit, if natural forces cannot account for free will or moral responsibility
* all that exists is not just made up of entirely natural forces
4. Conclusion: The best explanation for free will, and the immaterial part of a person is God
Cannot have free will without God. No God means no free will.
If free will (and love) does exist, our behavior is really in our control and we are morally and personally responsible; then God must exist. Free will (and love) exists. So, God must exist.
this is a valid Hypothetical Syllogism: Modus Ponens.
* For a more developed argument on this, see: WVC 3: “Are There Moral Laws” and “Do We Have Free Will” at
Worldview Cafe- https://sites.google.com/site/worldviewcafe
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