The Most Brilliant Minds Alive Today Are Either Horribly Dumb or Deceived - Atheist Thinking

In a corollary to my post yesterday on atheists believing they are basically very, very good.  There is also a kind of attitude in the blogs of intellectual atheists that is very derisive towards those who are believers.  Sometimes it borders on smugness or even bordering on snarkiness, but it is rarely very far from derisive.

Thus one is left wondering if this tiny minority of the population has arrived at some special knowledge or insight that is kept from the overwhelming majority of those who are the intellectual giants of, not merely the past, but of the present day. 

On the one hand, we have Christians who are curious as to how one looks around at nature and doesn't see design, and how one cannot feel the presence of God.  Thus some Christians or other believers are not kind towards atheists either, and inclined to see them as crackpots or worse.  It is well said by many atheists that it is unlikely that an atheist will ever be elected to high office.  But in this case a huge majority are experiencing something and intuiting something about the universe that is demonstrably proving itself in their lives to be true and valuable.

On the other hand, atheists are not, to my knowledge, experiencing anything or looking around at nature and seeing chaos or something that is obviously not designed.  Rather the atheist goes out of his way to find any explanation other than God to describe how things are and what things mean.  So how does one become smug believing in the absence of something?  Help me out.

Do Atheists and Agnostics Do Evil Acts or Think Evil Thoughts?

There is a thread of the atheist vs Christian debate that has both sides believing that Atheists don't wish to follow Jesus because they would need to give up their evils ways.  Honestly, most intellectual atheists don't seem to fit that pattern.  On the other hand, practical atheists or nominal believers would commonly fit that statement.  They may be hard party folks, given to sexual sin, desiring to keep lying, cheating on taxes, etc. 

In fact, I would go so far as to say, most atheists I have debated at length are more inclined to think that they are not sinners, and thus would have no need of a savior.  A very close friend of mine has stated that they never lie, cheat, steal, etc.  And from what I know of this person, he/she might be close to correct. 

So, I'm curious to hear from non-believers.  Do you do acts which you consider to be very inappropriate and worthy of judgment by somebody?  Do you fail to do things that you probably should do that if these failings were known would cause others to judge you harshly?  Or do you see yourself as being very, very nice, friendly, unselfish, law abiding, etc.  If yes, is it possible that you project your perfection onto others and believe that were it not for .... fill in the blank .... bad parenting, government, religion, poverty, bad luck, bad friends .... that everyone would be close to perfect like you.   I know this last bit seems a bit "nasty," but I can't think of another way to get the subject on the table.

If you spend a bit of time in the atheist websites, I think you will gather that most atheists see themselves as better than others, much smarter and certainly wiser.  But they also see themselves as not needing anyone to help them make wise decisions.  They would be the "good person" that many of liberal political thought think is the norm.

Where have I gone wrong?

Why Do Humans Act UnNaturally?

Assumption:  Humans are the highest order of all species.
Assumption:  In order to get to the top, humans would need to conduct themselves in a manner that was consistent with both nature and Darwin's evolutionary theories.
Assumption:  In a naturalistic word view, it is impossible for anything to act other than under the laws of nature
Assumption:  A very clear understanding of evolutionary theory is that species will act selfishly and want to replicate themselves.
Exception:  There seems to be an inclination on the part of some life to stop replicating or reduce this natural inclination when they are feeling squeezed by the density of population.
Humans who are not squeezed are purposely reducing replication.  The humans who have the least amount to fear from density, food shortage, shelter issues, are the ones who are most likely to "unselfishly" agree to reduce replication.
Thus this intentional decision to not reproduce would seem to be both unnatural and potentially devastating to the most highly advanced of the most highly advanced.  (Sorry for the eugenics).  The very most successful, regardless of race, or any other observable trait, are the very ones who are most inclined to forgo reproduction.

Separately, the question of why do humans act unnaturally with regard to unselfish behavior of any kind?  Why would very, very large percentages of the human population believe that the unselfish approaches to life offered by Jesus and others would be the "best" way to live.  Even atheists and followers of other religions point to the beatitudes as ideal.

Bayesian inference

One thing that we keep tripping over in these conversations is the nature of "evidence". When can you say that a certain observation is "evidence" for a certain hypothesis, for the superiority of one model over another?

I tend to promote the view that almost anything can be "evidence" for an a-priori belief. If you really want to believe in a kind of system, then anything you observe can be explained in terms of that system (or you can trust that your system will probably have a way to explain it, even if you can't come up with the explanation yourself) and this reinforces the completeness and explanatory power of your system. Now, I don't REALLY believe in this, not as extremely as I make it sound. I offer this position in part to play Devil's Advocate, and in part because it is a view that is woefully under-represented in the theism-atheism debate.

I do honestly believe that, when people say "I see evidence for God" or "There is no evidence for God but there's tons of evidence for naturalism", this shows that they haven't stopped to think about what "evidence" means, or about when it is that you can or can't say that an observation supports a claim.

Instead of deconstructing their argument, or constructing a logically rigorous method for evaluating this kind of thing mathematically, allow me to just give an example to get you thinking and to help us move forwards.

---------------------------------------

Say I put several hundred golf balls and ping-pong balls into a box. Some are white and the others are yellow. Say that 70% of the golf balls are white and 30% yellow, and 20% of the ping-pong balls are white and 80% yellow. So, most of the golf balls are white (and the rest of them are yellow), and most of the ping-pong balls are yellow (and the rest are white). With me so far?

Say I mix things around for a while, to make sure everything is evenly distributed. I then reach into the box blindly, and randomly pick up a ball. I tell you that it is yellow. And now I ask: Is it more likely to have been a golf ball or a ping-pong ball?

You might say it’s probably a ping-pong ball, since the chances of a ping-pong ball being yellow (80%) are greater than the chances of a golf ball being yellow (30%).

But that's not necessarily correct. In fact, you simply do not have enough data to answer my question, not even probabilistically. And I can prove it to you.

What if I now tell you that only a tiny fraction of the balls in the box are ping-pong balls? If the box contains a thousand golf balls but only ten ping-pong balls, then three hundred of the balls are yellow golf balls and only eight are yellow ping-pong balls.This means that (despite the fact that the probability of a ping-pong ball being yellow is higher than the probability of a golf ball being yellow) most of the yellow balls in the box are golf balls, since by far most of the balls in the box are golf balls.

So, in this case, my yellow ball is probably a golf ball.

And until I told you how many golf balls there are, compared with how few ping pong-balls there are, you could not have reached this answer. You would just have been guessing (maybe based on the unfounded [and in this case, incorrect] assumption that the total number of golf balls is similar to the total number of ping-pong balls).

--------------------------------

When you understand the thought experiment I just described, we can move on to a more rigorous explanation, and to its implications in the God-vs-no-God debate.

Ready?

Mathematically: Just because X-given-A has a higher probability than X-given-B, this does not mean that A-given-X is more likely than B-given-X.

Ok, maybe I skipped a step. Bear with me.

"A" means "It's a ping-pong ball" and "B" means "It's a golf ball". "X" means "It's yellow" and "Y" means "It's white".

Just because Yellow-given-PingPongBall has a higher probability (80%) than Yellow-given-GolfBall (30%), this says nothing about the relative likelihood of GolfBall and PingPongBall (which could be, say, 99% and 1%, or anything else). This is even true if we know that we have a Yellow ball. The relative probability of GolfBall and PingPongBall is determined by a totally different set of factors (how many of each kind of ball I put in the box) than the factors that determine the probability of the color of each ball (what fraction of each kind of ball is colored each color).

In summary:

Just because Yellow-given-PingPongBall has a higher probability than Yellow-given-GolfBall, this does not mean that PingPongBall-given-Yellow is more likely than GolfBall-given-Yellow.

If we substitute "A" for "It's a ping-pong ball" and "B" for "It's a golf ball", and "X" for "It's yellow" and "Y" for "It's white", we can generalize:

Just because X-given-A has a higher probability than X-given-B, this does not mean that A-given-X is more likely than B-given-X.

Unless you can prove that A is impossible, and unless you can prove that B is impossible, then both A and B are possible. I can't know what kind of ball I have (I can't even know what kind of ball I PROBABLY have) just from looking at its color. The relative probability of A and B simply cannot be learned by comparing the relative probabilities of X-given-A and X-given-B. They can only be learned by taking multiple samples and seeing whether A or B come up more often, or by observing that A is often associated with certain kinds of observations and B is associated with certain other observations (e.g. when I draw a golf ball from this box it tends to be white, and when I draw a ping pong ball from this box it tends to be yellow).

Here's the important part.

You might say "In a world guided by a God, it is probable that intelligent life would be created. In a world not guided by a God, it is extremely unlikely that intelligent life would form". I could dispute both of these assumptions, but let's assume that they are correct for now. (And you can feel free to insert anything you like instead of "intelligent life", such as "beings who believe in God", or "cosmological constants that allow for chemistry").

Saying that the probability of IntelligentLife-given-God is higher than the probability of IntelligentLife-given-NoGod DOES NOT allow you to logically infer that the probability of God-given-IntelligentLife is higher than the probability of NoGod-given-Intelligent life.

In other words, saying “The evolution of intelligence [or any other "evidence for God" you may wish to insert here] is unlikely in a world without God and likely in a world with God, and we see intelligence, therefore God is more likely than No God” is logically equivalent to saying "The ball is yellow, therefore it's probably a ping-pong, ball since most ping-pong balls are yellow". Both statements are fallacious: it's possible that most yellow balls are golf balls, even if most ping-pong balls are be yellow.

This should allow us to see that an evidence-based approach to this God debate is hopeless. No matter how much we learn about the world and the different ways it might have become as it currently is, this knowledge will never tell us about the relative probability of World-given-“God” versus that of World-given-“no God”. All that each person can say is “I don’t need God to satisfactorily explain what I see around me”, or “I need God to satisfactorily explain what I see around me”, both of which are valid depending on what questions you’re asking. (I think that the questions that require God to be satisfactorily explained are not particularly meaningful, but I can see that this is a matter of personal taste).

Holders of different axioms will interpret the evidence so as to make their axioms and models seem, to them, more likely than an opponent’s axioms and models. But as elementary Statistics reveal, this is a fallacy. Besides, the bottom line is, even if it were not a fallacy, it does not deny that the opponent’s set of axiomatic assumptions is still possible, though unlikely. So the opponents can still go on believing what they want.

Human Sexuality and the Evolution Debate

Why is it that other animals don't get sexually transmitted diseases from promiscuous behavior?  What possible explanation from survival theory would have man as the only species that faces the partner during sex?  What would the purpose of the Hyman be?

Campus Discourse Not Open and Free

If science is such a preferred way of doing things, why must it quash debate.  Global warming is decided.  Evolution is decided.  Can't discuss supernatural unless it is a natural kind of supernatural (other universes, other species from other planets.)  Opinions contrary to the current liberal and scientific politically correct way of thinking is booed and hissed and threatened with violence.  The haters of today are primarily unbelievers who hate believers or those who disagree with them and desire to shut them up.  Very likely much of this hate derives from the fear of the unknown, since they may be like my neighbor, who says I'm the only conservative he knows.

Not to say that there have never been haters or bigots in religious circles.  But you would have us believe that science is perfecting man.  Seems like the pride factor is creating a new kind of monster. 

Starting at the Beginning - How Did the Universe Begin?

Christians believe that God has always existed, and that he spoke everything else into existence.  This would suggest that intelligence, law, love, and some form of spiritual world existed prior to the creation of stuff, and probably outside of any space/time continuum. 

What do atheists believe exactly?  Not big bang, but how big bang?  Would you consider any such theory to be anything but raw conjecture?  Does anything about such an explanation provide us with an understanding of how immutable laws, evil, intellect, music came into existence?

Science and Belief in God - Can These Two Coexist?

 There is much discussion about the percentages of scientists that are atheists vs the general public and/or whether it is possible to be both a Christian and a scientist.  I found this speech by Henry F Schaefer III to be quite dispositive.  Here was his concluding paragraph and following that the link.

There is a tremendous tradition of distinguished scientists who were and are Christians. I hope that my work is considered sufficiently outstanding to fall into the distinguished among that category. I also hope I have given you enough evidence that you will never again believe that it is impossible to be a scientist and a Christian.

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/schaefer/docs/scientists.html


By the way, he cites one study showing the same % of PHD scientists in church each week as the general public.  (about 43%)

Is There Objective Truth?

If there is no objective truth, why seek it?
If there is objective truth, where did it come from, and why is it static?
If there is objective truth, those who hold that my truth can be different than yours would be following folly. 
If there is no objective truth, what can we know?  Wouldn't the very statement be self defeating.  In other words we couldn't know whether or not there was no objective truth.

Why Do Top Atheistic Scientists Encourage Us to Ignore Objective Reality

It appears that humans are wired to tell the difference between created objects and things that are random.  If I see a rock that is shaped a bit like something familiar, I'm likely to think it is random and amusing that it looks "something like" something else.  But, if the rock looks very much like the face of a human, there is generally a good chance I will know if it is by some other human's hand that it has become quite like a face.

So we look at flowers, eyeballs, humming birds, and universal laws like gravity, and our mind naturally thinks these are designed.  The starting point for science is to observe and then hypothesize.  But many scientists today specifically admonish us to turn our back on observation and ignore first principles.  Somehow in this one instance, we should suspend orr rational minds in order to come up with more complex solutions for how things happened to come into existence looking like design, but actually the result of random chance over millions of years. 

What is the Source of Energy for the Universe?

After a couple of years or so of struggling with personal matters, I am ready to revive the conversation.  Two new ideas (new to me anyway) have been brought to my attention while watching a series called "The Truth Project."  The first is this.  Assuming that one makes the leap of faith that the universe was created from nothing or from some very small compact bundle of matter and energy that exploded at the Big Bang, what source of energy is sustaining what was started?  Or will the universe wind down at some point?  If in fact the universe has been around for millions or billions of years, how is it possible that this massive amount of energy came into being?  Or is there some as yet undetermined energy production furnace that is refueling all of the billion star systems to keep them all in place and spinning and such?

I guess Hawking thinks that the Universe always existed.  If that is the case, one would pretty much have to assume that there is a generator somewhere producing an endless supply of energy.  Amazing to think about.

Planeseatreclineology

Obviously I haven't had time to blog on this subject lately, but I couldn't pass this one up. Your comments, please?

Another View of the Cave by Brian Kirk

While Plato's allegory of the cave caused me to think about things deeper,
I have also begun to ponder what may be considered the converse.

Say that, there were a bunch of free men, examining the perfect world
around them. One day, because of a horrible choice to commit a crime,
they were forced into a cave, and into bondage, shackles around the
neck and legs, much like Plato's cave.

Would not these men try to explain everything they saw in the cave as
a comparison to what they saw in the perfect world? And wouldn't they,
for a period of time at least, long for the world which they had been
cast out of?

Would they not attempt to make discoveries about this cave, all the
while coming to false conclusions because all they have known is the
perfection of the world above?

Would a few generations pass and the discoveries of the world around
would be even further from the truth just like the children's game of
telephone? The meanings of the objects would be blurred and distorted.

Perhaps not though. Perhaps they will begin to adjust to the light of
the fire and "figure out" all that there is to know. But all the
while, the memory of the perfect world would slowly fade.

The children's children of the original few men placed into bondage
might even find the "theory" or the idea of a perfect world to be
ridiculous, and dismiss it as a myth. Of course, it wouldn't be a
myth, but they might believe it was.

More and more, those who still believe in such a world would be the
outcasts of the society, viewed as weak and ignorant. However, in
truth, they would be the only ones that had an inkling of what life
really was.

And it would be these people, the ones that had faith, that the
keepers of the cave and the world in which it is contained would find
a redeemable quality.

Eventually, they would be allowed out of the cave into the perfect
world that they spent their entire life preparing for.

Placebo Effect and Mesmer by Bernardo

Recently I listened to an interesting radio show, which added some substance to my views on people's religious experiences. I thought I should share this with you and get your impression. Randy, if you would like to publish the text below as a guest post on your God Vs No God blog, feel free.

New York's NPR station, WNYC, produces an excellent weekly show called "Radio Lab". The two hosts chat with each other, and with diverse experts (typically scientists and historians and doctors and psychologists, but sometimes people who just have unusual jobs or experiences), about interesting topics such as what time is, where the sense of self comes from, how memories are formed and recalled (or forgotten), how stress works, morality, mortality, etc. You can listen to it online and I strongly recommend it.

Anyways, they had one episode about the placebo effect. The show was introduced with the real-life story of a Native American who became skeptical of the healing powers claimed by the tribe's shaman. The young man simply could not believe that all that chanting and ritual had any effect on disease. So he "went undercover" and asked to become an apprentice shaman. As well as how to make certain remedies using plants and other substances, he learned many theatrical "tricks", such as putting some feathers in his mouth, biting the inside of his cheek to draw blood, then pretending to "suck" out the disease from the patient and then spitting out the bloody feathers. Knowing that the theatrics involved were just that, he started his shaman work, faking it just like the shaman who taught him. But, to his amazement, the "tricks" worked, even though sometimes he wasn't really doing anything (as far as giving them substances that might help them).

From there, the first half of the show is spent talking with scientists about how the placebo effect works. In case you're curious: Say you take a substance, be it aspirin or caffeine or ecstasy or an antidepressant, and it has some effect on you. The fact that it had an effect indicates that your cells have receptors for this substance (or for one very much like it), molecular "locks" that are triggered when a certain kind of "key" molecule snaps into them. But if your cell already has those receptors, then human cells have always had those receptors, and this means that your body can already manufacture that substance (or one very much like it). Somewhere in your body - maybe in one specific gland, maybe in every cell - you have the power to manufacture most of the kinds of "medicines" and "mind-altering substances" you need. The hard part is triggering that production. Mysteriously, thinking that you have ingested a substance that has a certain effect, can often somehow trigger the production of whatever substance the body can make which comes closest to having that effect, at least for a little while. Yes, this is an incomplete explanation but it contains some elegant and powerful insights I did not have until I heard it.

The second half of that show is what I really want to talk about. It talked about faith healers, and about a German guy in the 1700s named Mesmer (from whom we get the word "mesmerized") who claimed to "magnetize" things and to cure diseases using "animal magnetism", a ether-like substance that connects all living things. For example, he would rub magnetized iron rods against a tree, and claim that the tree now channeled "animal magnetism". His patients would then touch the tree, start shaking and moaning and convulsing and screaming... and after a while, many of them got better. But real doctors were losing patients to this, and scientists were understanding magnetism well enough at the time to know that this Mesmer was probably making this stuff up. So a commission of scientists (including Ben Franklin, the US's ambassador to France at the time) was formed, not to investigate whether Mesmer's magnetism worked (because, in many cases, it did) but to investigate whether it involved any real phenomenon external to the people treated by it, any kind of fluid or field that had real effects on the world. They performed a simple test: One of five trees was "magnetized" by Mesmer (or one of his followers, since he franchised this practice), and a patient being treated this way was asked to identify which of the 5 trees was "magnetized". As you may guess, few patients got it right. Still, the effects of mesmerism could not be denied, since a lot of people got better from what ailed them. The commission concluded that the effects of Mesmer's "Animal Magnetism" were not caused by any real ether-like fluid or field, but by the imaginations of the patients.

Many people today claim to have religious experiences, to see lights and speak in tongues, to be taken over by the Holy Spirit, etc. This is most noticeable in Pentecostals who are famous for this kind of stuff, and in Christian Scientists who claim that all disease is really just problems in one's relationship with God, but most Christians will claim to have perceived ( i.e. been affected by) the divine supernatural in some way. Listening to the story about mesmerism, about what it was like and the effects it had, made me think that these things can be easily explained as being induced by the person experiencing it, a kind of placebo effect, which makes sense since these people are the ones who believe that the Holy Spirit could actually come and make itself felt.

So, I ask: What is the difference between the Holy Spirit and Animal Magnetism?

Both have real observable effects. Neither can be shown to be triggered by anything outside the mind of the person experiencing it. I think that experiencing the divine is either a placebo effect, or the assigning of supernatural causes to phenomena that are naturally caused (like they used to with the weather, disease, etc).

Here is the MP3 of this show I am talking about. The part about mesmerism is from 42:35 to 50:20.

http://feeds.wnyc.org/~r/radiolab/~5/118525705/radiolab051807pod.mp3

And some more links for reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesmer#The_advent_of_animal_magnetism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism

What do you think?

- Bernardo

A Few Personal Notes

I know that I have been well short of prolific in these spaces lately. One could hope that the content has been of greater quality while declining in quantity. I actually have been concentrating a bit more on my writing and style. Did anyone notice?

The last few months have been filled with substantial turmoil. My partner and I started a business over 26 years which grew to be very substantial. However, due to conditions within and outside of our control, we were forced to sell the business to the highest bidder last month. This process has been extremely time consuming and draining. It has made it very hard to be "up" for blogging or any other creative endeavor.

To make matters even more interesting (to me at least), I am now in the process of deciding what to do for a living. Part of the sale includes continuing on as an employee for the next 8 months, but there is no guarantee of work beyond that. So I am currently flexing my writing skills, and attempting to sell three book ideas, several freelance column ideas, a couple of freelance articles, check into adjunct professoring, consulting, and expert witnessing.

If anyone has any thoughts on any of those career paths or can be of any help, please comment or email.

The good news is that now that the deal is closed, and the day-to-day management of the company is behind me, I am full of creative vigor and am writing 1000's of words per day. Some for the job. Lots for publication.

Alas, it is unclear to me how much time I can devote to this blog, in that I need to be writing for dollars. However, it is my intent to do at least a post or two per week and stay up with the comments. I could sure use some guest posts. (I admit that Bernardo sent me a good one that I haven't even had time to make ready, but I will.)

Thanks to all who visit and contribute here. I do intend to keep trying to be a good host.

Odds of No Catastrophic End to Life

Much has been written, even a well argued post here, about the question of the precise aspects needed to sustain life on this planet. More to the point, I have argued here that it is beyond comprehension that this status has been maintained for billions of years without intelligent intervention to keep the systems within a life-sustaining range.

Those arguing against such a proposition say that it is just so. Others suggest that this is flawed logic. One commentor said that we have had a least 4 near wipe-outs of life, but life came back.

Call the following a falacy if you like. However:

1. With so many mindless species having lived and gone extinct, how is it that none has ever been so successful at destroying other life that all but its own species was destroyed, leaving it with no food supply?

2. How is it that nature has such balance that even in the most inhospitable places, life finds a way?

3. How is it that life did recover from the 4 great catastrophes that we believe may have destroyed up to 96% of life?

4. Why life at all? Doesn't it appear that there is something about life which has a huge drive to survive? What is that about? In humans, we have self awareness that might cause us to want to keep living for the things we desire, even in the face of great difficulty. But why does a cockroach have that built into him? What is the source of that drive?

If I was playing serious money poker with you, and you were dealt two straight flushes in a row with no draw, I would want to find out what "magic" you possessed. You could tell me until the end of time that you just got lucky, but I'd never quite believe it, no matter how much evidence there was to back up your claim.

Free Will and Indoctrination

Re: My earlier post about the LA Times religious editor who lost his faith. My last thought in the post elicited the most comments. Do we need indoctrination to hold onto closely held beliefs. Add to this stew the issue of free will vs some form of cause-and-effect only thinking, and it would at least seem to offer new opportunities for contemplation of the human condition.

If "I" and "my actions" are but the sum total of various data inputs, then, he who controls the inputs should be able to finally claim the crown of Emperor of the World. Hitler and Osama think information and oppression alone will do it, but what with chemicals and other biomethods, surely we could turn humans into robots.

Then we will be faced with the question I think I posted about here a while back regarding folks who are mentally imbalanced: "How will we know?" Has it already happened? Enter the Matrix.

The "First Cause" Concept

Picture the three of us (my son-in-law with his Masters in apologetics from Biola, working on a second Masters in spirituality; my son, currently reading John McArthur (the leading US proponent of Calvinism; and me working on this issue around the pool overlooking the Pacific in Hawaii. We tend to agree with the conclusions of the previous post:

Most concepts of a Christian God make the concept of free will pretty hard to consistently consider.

In general, it is hard to imagine any effect, including any human decision that is not informed 100% by previous causality.

Defining Free Will is fraught with peril.

In the midst of this brainstorming session, an original thought (whatever that is) presented itself. There had to be at least one first cause in history. Why only one? Thus humans (and who knows who else) might have the capacity to being completely creative and generate first causes. This doesn't require a spiritual side or a soul. However, it does go to the matter as first presented, who am "I" if I'm not capable of free will decisions. Now it is proposed that I am an agent of first causes.

Free Will Fantasy

I just needed some time to think it through. Now what was so confusing has become simple at last. I just need to pretend that I actually can make choices. After all, up until now I have been pretending that there is a God and that Jesus is His Son. With all that practice, it should be a no brainer to pretend like the decisions I make have consequences over which I need to concern myself.

Come to think of it, I have been pretending just that all my life. Since I have never considered seriously such contentions from philosophy like "everything being in my head" as being something to seriously ponder, the pile of such discards has included no free will.

I really need to pretend these things, because our entire Western way of thinking is based on volition. The jurisprudence system is based on intent and reasonable man. Our constitution set out the idea of the peons ruling the rulers by making and informed decision. Our commerce is based on consumer choice.

Wonder if there are other aspects of what we think we know scientifically that will require us to pretend to accept the unscientific? First God. Then free will. What next?

Free Will, or at least Cheap Will

Got up this morning, and I am sooooo confused. I don't want to do what God preordained me to do. Even if it is the absolute best thing for me to do, I don't want to do it, just because. Call me a child of the '60's. A real rebel.

Moreover, I certainly don't want to do anything that is simply the result of random occurrences in my genetics, experiences, and bodily chemical reactions. Yuk. So, my first thought was to do the opposite of what I was going to do. Unfortunately, that would be exactly what my predispositions would cause me to do. I considered doing the opposite of the opposite. I put my options into a random generator. Surely God knew I would do that. Besides, my reading of an article on a new random number generator last week surely caused me to think of that option.

Now my thoughts turned diabolical. If I can't make any real choices about my actions, then I really need to consider why I fret so much over making choices. I have read many places, including the Bible, that we should take care of today, and let tomorrow take care of itself. Coooool! In the case of the Bible, this had to do with not worrying or being anxious. But many, many self help books and pundits seem to mean something far more nihilistic.

So, if I choose not to believe in God, this is because I wasn't intended to anyway. If I choose to maximize my own power, wealth, consumption, and personal enjoyment, regardless of how it effects others, this would merely be the result of previous causes in my life. I can disregard the little voice in my head telling me to be unselfish, kind, loving, and such, since that voice is not the Holy Spirit, and the part of my make-up that can turn off that voice is just as much a part of me that turns it on.

Sure, I have to weigh consequences of my actions. But, lets face it, I'm 59. If I could get in 10 years of living large, there won't be that much time left for paying those consequences. And that's assuming I ever get caught or drive away the friendship of someone who really matters to me.

Need to think a bit more about all this. I'm off to church. Not because I choose to go in the face of all this, but because my Great, great, great grandparents went to church every week.