Me too. So likely, does everyone — ENOAH

Isn't determinism a fairly common thread in philosophy? I was arguing for the choice to believe among those that have considered the arguments against free will. Without question, the average person believes in free will. The average Christian, for example, believes God has given them free will, which to me seems inconsistent with his omniscience.

Humans in history might be called evil because we despise our own actions, but we are not inherently so. We despise our own actions because they are not our natures. And, therefore, albeit a centuries or millennia long process, history can be constructed differently. — ENOAH

I agree with you here. I can't see our modern concepts of morality without all the historical and biological contingencies. I fear the biological component, our 'nature', has been diminished in our 'constructivist' era, which compromises understanding.

I am new to philosophy, so this is likely naive, but the free will debate strikes me as a false binary. Something about our natures and the environmental factors surrounding our ancestors intersected to the point at which we began to 'despise our own actions'. At what point can this be called free will?

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
— Steven Weinberg

More bigoted baloney. — T Clark

:smirk: Denial is a hell of a drug ...

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
~Blaise Pascal, Pensées

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." — 180 Proof

All that means is laypersons need to be controlled by governing authorities and penalized when they act out. Which they are. Those who aren't sneaks, at least.

What is your solution going forward? People want to believe in something greater than the cold, calculated, and ultimately empty mechanical workings of this world. That the warmth and resplendence we feel from a mother's embrace or a child's hand is more than just an illusion and nothing more than a series of neurons firing and responding to one another So they will. Bet.

It's almost as if you're saying a person who is a genuine atheist can't ever get obsessed with eugenics and consider certain people "obsolete" or "defective" and attempt to remove them with a genuine sentiment of doing them and the world a favor. Ego or confidence and "self-assurance" is an ingrained biological mechanism for survival. It seems almost natural for someone in a position of power over others to end up with that line of thinking. If there's really nothing that matters, including one's own humanity, what harm is there to engage in genocide, enslavement, and anything else for that matter?

... what harm is there to engage in genocide, enslavement, and anything else for that matter? — Outlander

C'mon, this same rhetorical question / rationalization has been invoked "In The Name Of God" by countless priests & princes at least since the Bronze Age (ergo theodicy, teleological suspension of the ethical, Deus Volt/Inshallah, ends justify means, just following orders, etc). :mask:

C'mon, this same rhetorical question / rationalization has been invoked "In The Name Of God" by countless priests & princes at least since the Bronze Age (ergo theodicy, teleological suspension of the ethical, Deus Volt/Inshallah, ends justify means, just following orders, etc). :mask: — 180 Proof

So what's your solution? People will follow anything. Someone or something attractive, larger than themself, popular, or of course, yes, religiously elevated. If it's not "religion" and "God" one is following it's "honor", if it's not that it's "scientific advancement", if it's not that it's "free will". We all follow something as if it were God (an ultimate truth or at least path to a better state of being). I don't see how changing the name of the phenomenon would ultimately prevent anything. Do you? :confused:

So what's your solution? — Outlander

Resist every temptation to not think.

That's no solution at all and I would posit the extremely well educated theologists among us (the world, not the forum) would find your position insulting to their intelligence, and you'd be in no real position to counter that, given their level of education and understand trumping yours by some magnitude.

We share the belief that religion tends to beget bigotry. We've seen this in the last two days. We don't share the belief that 'thinking' is a solution. Courage is what's needed to trump easy thoughts, and this cannot be bumper-stickered. Something much more interesting needs to be happening than thinking.

Nature cares not about us. We have departed from our natural state of living by way of civil interactions that have culminated in the biggest threat to our lives being each other.

Our aggression and violence are not a negative traits. The simple fact that they are no longer directed in opposition to the forces of nature (for most people) means we seek out other avenues of direct opposition to combat against. This comes in many forms over the course of human civil history.

A tree bears fruit we can gorge on and branches that can impale us.

Humans offers both opportunities for companionship and competition.