Atheistic Materialism Automatically Disqualifies Free Will

I've just read this thread and not sure whether you are trying to define atheism or free will. Definitions can be formed in your own minds too. Isn't it all 'free will' to decide the existence or the non-existence of a higher being? I claim to be agnostic, which is different to being an atheist:

The broader, and more common, understanding of atheism among atheists is quite simply "not believing in any gods." No claims or denials are made - an atheist is just a person who does not happen to be a theist. Sometimes this broader understanding is called "weak" or "implicit" atheism. Most good, complete dictionaries readily support this.
There also exists a narrower sort of atheism, sometimes called "strong" or "explicit" atheism. With this type, the atheist explicitly denies the existence of any gods - making a strong claim which will deserve support at some point. Some atheists do this and others may do this with regards to certain specific gods but not with others. Thus, a person may lack belief in one god, but deny the existence of another god.

Some imagine that agnosticism represents an alternative to atheism, but those people have typically bought into the mistaken notion of the single, narrow definition of atheism. Strictly speaking, agnosticism is about knowledge, and knowledge is a related but separate issue from belief, the domain of theism and atheism.

The term "agnosticism" itself was coined by Professor T.H. Huxley at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1876.
For Huxley, agnosticism was a position which rejected the knowledge claims of both "strong" atheism and traditional theism. More importantly, agnosticism for him was a method of doing things. In 1889 he wrote in Agnosticism:

Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of which lies in the vigorous application of a single principle ...Positively the principle may be expressed as in matters of intellect, do not pretend conclusions are certain that are not demonstrated or demonstrable.

Agnosticism, then, involves not concluding that a god does or does not exist when we do not have any good reasons to do so.
So, if a person cannot claim to know, or know for sure, if any gods exist, then they may properly use the term "agnostic" to describe themselves.

That's sorta the point: that if we have no Soul (or something similar)...if we are merely a mass of miscellaneous cosmic crap, there's absolutely no logical basis for the idea that we have any choice whatsoever. We're just stuff reacting to other stuff.

When I say that Atheism entails this, it simply means that the concept of any Free Will whatsoever is completely reliant on mankind being more than the sum of its biological parts, period.


Right. Though it should be noted that Agnosticism is not just "God could exist, but I don't personally think so," for the most part. It usually represents the "I don't think we have enough information to go on" viewpoint. Both Atheists and Theists alike have come to a verdict...Agnostics are the hung jury of the theological world.

That said, I agree with basically everything you said. Though, forgive me for being so blunt: what's your point? It seems to have become chic, in this thread, to write posts that, while very well-written and insightful, don't really address the subject matter directly. 'Sup with that?

Wow, really coy. It's funny that you say this Yoda, because your original post didn't. You start a post in a way that is so obscure from your point that it is unlikely that anyone could respond to what is really on your mind. Your original statement didn't say anything about our molecular structure and the cause and effect theory. It simply stated that you believed that if I didn't believe in God, then I must logically accept, and agree with you of course, that I have no free will. It's really hard to stick to the point when your point is so masqueraded as something else. Not only that, I think I remember seeing some awfully long posts on other subjects out there written by you.

You anger me, that’s why I hate your threads. You seem so damn condescending. If you want to have a valid debate from now on, quit with the trickery that you used for this thread. Make it clear what you want to debate. Don’t say one thing, wait for responses, then make it seem like we’re all a bunch of idiots for not sticking to your “hidden” subject.

JERK!

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You a-holes are baking my noodle.

Chris:
just out of curiosity, what if you were to substitute 'Tiger' for leaf in the above example?

Don't animals have free will, yet are ignorant of God? Do animals possess a brain complex enough to understand will?

I'm just curious about where you'd place them here. My dog makes a free will decision not to come to me when I call the idiotic thing... I know she understands that she has a choice.

Okay -- first, a leaf falls from a tree. The weather affects its cells, the leaf has no choice in reacting the way it does. It lands wherever, etc. You want to know why the cells and chemicals that make up human beings are exempt from this?

They're not.

We're talking about something physical here. We have no choice if we fall down a flight of stairs and break our leg. Now, if there's a God and he intervenes, or if it's predestined by the divine that the fall won't hurt us, then the choice is up to God and we don't get hurt. But if we do get hurt, that's only natural. We are susceptible to nature. Obviously, our cells slowly die off as we age and we LOOK OLDER, just as the weather will cause a leaf to rot, change color, etc.

Free will is if we decide to jump off a twenty foot tall building and commit suicide. By nature, we'll fall, land on pavement, kill ourselves, and our cells will die and our body decomposes. Now, if God happens to intervene, maybe they'll be someone there to save you. Or, you could decide - "Hey! I'm not gonna commit suicide! I'm gonna keep on living!"

Now the leaves can fall and the feathers can fly on by Forrest Gump as much as they want. That is their nature. And they're going to die just like we are.

What part of our body is isolated from cause and effect? Our mind. We DO have free will - we may not however have free will as to where our lives go. Maybe that's predestined. But you have to be a theist to believe that. Atheists don't believe that. But we have some kind of free will, whether we realize it or not. In the end, we could find out that our lives were just like the leaves on the trees and the cells in our body subjected to the world - all under control - but that is to be seen.

Atheists believe in free will -- LordSlayton here can choose to find you and kill you if he wishes, since he thinks you're a jerk, or he can choose to not kill you. Now if LordSlayton or someone else has a major chemical imbalance/mental illness.... well, they have less free will than us because of their illness, and they can't help but do something like that. Look at sleepwalkers who get up in the middle of the night and kill somebody or fall off something and die. But if you believe in God, then maybe you see everything happening for a reason - that, for now, is subjective.

If a tiger falls out of a tree in the woods and no God is around to have made it so did it really choose to fall at all?

Two words. Twilight. Zone.

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An unborn fetus has no Free Will.
It also has no interpretation of a higher power or atheism.

Therefore, if it's aborted it is niether an action of its own free will, nor is it a Devine Intervention (most religions shun abortion).

What is it then?

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r66-The member who always asks WHY?

I just got pissed because I spent some considerable time and effort to make sure I had my facts straight for a good debate. Just to have him question why people think it's "chic" to post lengthy and pointless posts. If he wanted to debate whether we are victims of cause and effect and whether we are in any way in control of it, then he should have said that. But he didn't. I wasted my time and wound up looking foolish. I have a right to call him a Jerk. As far as being unstable...

Okay, but don't take what I said personally. Just coming up with an example.

Well, if it's aborted, the mother had the free will to decide to abort it. It's an unborn fetus. It could have been divine intervention keeping it from being born at the same time. No soul in the fetus, perhaps. What I'm saying is - everything could be meant to happen, even when we think we're making our own choices here. But that's only if you believe in that.

i don't believe in god, i'm a fatalist, i believe basically things happen because a chain of events leads to a moment where whatever happened was possible, and any break in that chain would have not caused that specific result. so essentially i belive in free will because i have control over the outcome, even though in some situations something is uncontrollable and what i thought to be the way to go about doing things was in fact the wrong way. but none the less, if i don't smoke cigarettes, i'm not going to get cancer from smoking cigarettes. that is a decision based on free will, and cancer will never manifest itself inside my body from smoking cigarettes. thats just an example. but to say because your athiest that automatically disqualifies free will, thats an outrageous statement.

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Chris,

You know humans have free will. You know this, not because you read your bible, or because religious people you have followed taught you to, but because you know that you are capable of making decisions on your own. I thought your first post was pretty out there, but your response to me was even worse. How am I different than a leaf? You've got to be kidding me.

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One of the biggest myths told is that being intelligent is the absence of the ability to do stupid things.

Maybe he meant somebody named Leif? :shrugs:

Heinrich Leif.

The German man who keeps falling from trees and getting swept away by the wind...

Slaytan: I wrote a long, detailed response, but instead, I'll just say this: you may say I'm a jerk, but I think you're a better man than that. I think you're a good, kind man at heart. I just think that the things I have a tendency to do happen to be the things which have a tendency to push your buttons. And vice versa. But I can get past that if you can.


Sounds nutty, eh? But if it is, you should have no problem telling me just why. Of course you're different from a leaf; you know quite well I'm not claiming otherwise...but what basis do you have for believing that the chemical and biological reactions in your body are under a different set of guidelines than any other group of cells and chemicals? Why do you think the stuff humans are made out of is special compared to the stuff other things are?

It's one thing to say "this is crazy," but if it really is, you should be able to then elaborate on WHY it is crazy. So far your reasoning seems to be that we have free will because we "know that we are capable of making decisions on our own." But I think you can agree that, from any objective standpoint, that isn't a logical basis to make your objection on.

Now, you may say that you can feel yourself weighing options and coming to conclusions; and you're right. What I'm saying is that, assuming we're just a mass of stuff, you were inevitably going to weigh the options in the exact way you did, and you were inevitably going to then reach the conclusion you did. I think I've mapped out just why pretty well, and I'd be curious as to your thoughts on the matter. Why do you think humans consist of some special biological phenomenon which is for some reason exempt from the same cause-and-effect? Surely it can't be just because our chemicals and cells are woven together more intricately than most others.


Good question. I do think they have Free Will, yes. Just not sentience in the way we do, really. Regardless, even if I were to substitute "Tiger" for "leaf," my point would remain the same: for man to have any true choices, he (or she) must be more than the some of their parts.



Are you asking if a fetus has any default religious affiliation?

Nah, I'm really a violent man, I'd knock your teeth out if I had the chance.

Okay, not really.

Yes, you push my buttons. Yes, I push yours. How do we manage to not do this? I don't know the answer to that. If we follow your logic, then it is inevitable that we don’t get along. There is nothing that we can do about it other than accept the fact, but is that acceptance by choice?

To say that we are nothing more than atoms, leads to a fatalistic viewpoint. Why bother if there is nothing more to our lives than predestination? Our ancestors needed more than that, as do we. But that still does not lead to any kind of an answer.

You asked the question, “What key ingredient sparks us with choice?”. The way I see it, it must be our brains. Yes, all living and non-living organisms that live on, and make up, the planet Earth consist of the same make-up. But not all of the “creations” are made the same. It’s like a potato, there’s a gratins, mashed, baked, and fried. Of course they’re all potato’s, but they’re all different in flavor, texture, and appearance. The difference between me and your leaf, is that my cells make up another organism that can act independently from it’s nature. My brain cancels out pure cause and effect, wherein all choice is implausible. If the wind blows me to the right, I can hold onto the tree and not go right. Of course by doing that, I have started another scenario of cause and effect. May hap’s by my grabbing the tree I knock off another leaf that has no will to deny the wind it’s desire. But cause and effect is inescapable. We initiate cause and effect as well as fall victim to it. We initiate it with our choices and free will. A leaf cannot share this distinction with sentient beings.

As far as your comment, “It seems to have become chic, in this thread, to write posts that, while very well-written and insightful, don't really address the subject matter directly.” It made me angry with you because when I wrote my post, you had not changed the topic of discussion yet. Your comment felt belittling and patronizing, not to mention rude and very antagonistic. Please be more clear with what your threads are “really” about from here on out. I would appreciate that a great deal. I apologize about calling you a jerk, you know I like you just fine, but like you said, you push my buttons quite well.

Peace, Brian.


BTW Sexy, I didn't take what you posted personally, I just felt the need to justify my anger. I still believe that I was justified with my feelings, just not in the way I presented them.

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. - Lyall Watson

This whole "atheists don't believe in free will" claim is absolutely ridiculous. I've had discussions with literally hundreds of atheists, and perhaps 3 or 4 of them have given me the impression that they believe everything is fated, all mapped out, that no one really makes choices with free will. I would take a WILD STAB IN THE DARK, and say that most atheists believe they have free will. You are trying to put words in atheists mouths, something you don't do a very accurate job of.

I never said anything like the stuff humans are made up of is special. You are grasping so hard in this thread, that one would think your arms are a mile long.

I don't know about CRAZY; that's your word, not mine. But your claims in this thread don't make any sense. You throw them out there like they are fact, and give nothing to back them up. Your attitude seems to be that if I can't explain how humans are different than leaves when it comes to fate, then your claims are correct. Nonsense. You are the one making the assertions; back them up. Just because I don't know how the human brain works, doesn't prove your point in the slightest way.

Where do you get this?? How do you make the leap from someone not believing in a god to the things they do being inevitable? You have not explained this; you just expect us to buy it. I don't believe in fate, Chris. Please explain to me how everything is mapped out just because I don't have a belief in any deities?

I'm your commentator Mr. M. J. Clayfield and welcome to the most talked about thread on MoFo for the entire length of time that I've been here. And I really do mean talked about.

It is one thing to have a widely and wildly used thread [Ups and Downs Tab, for example], with a lot of posts, but it is another [and an amazing rarity] to have a thread that inspires discussions about it on AIM, Yahoo, MSN and via email and the PM system, all with different people, all within a mere twenty-our hours or so of it being opened. Never has a thread exploded with such verocity onto the MoFanic Scene [add that to the glossary with the meaning: the MoFo related community that operates off the main boards between members].

Let's watch in anticipation, shall we?

I've been paying very close attention to this thread but I haven't posted anything (except for one post) because the existence or non-existence of god is something I think about just as much as the existence or non-existence of the Loch Ness monster. In short, I don't think very much about it. But you guys make me do it!

You all seem to be so well oriented in this area - I'm actually very impressed - and I wouldn't stand a chance in this debate. I don't even know if I would fall into the category of atheist or not. I mean, I don't really believe in the bible even though I think Jesus and the message of love is cool. He was a true revolutionary. And I don't believe that there is an interventionous God or that the biblical God created the Universe. I don't need that to understand that we have to treat each other and our one and only mother nature with much much deeper respect and carefulness or everything will go to hell within a close future.

Anyway, I would like to say that I agree with LordSlaytan when he says that he doesn't get what this topic is about anymore. I read what Yoda writes and it's all very well formulated with falling leaves and everything is made out of the same matter and so on. But how does that prove that atheists are different from believers in God when it comes to Free Will? I don't even know whether I'm an atheist or not. And I don't care. But I'm pretty sure I have my free will intact. What I think Yoda is saying is that those hardcore atheists, the 3 or 4 people Firegod mentioned, they are so trapped under the belief of the existance of nothing and everything is bound to happen. No use in trying to affect things. Nihilists, really. But... How is that really different from hardcore "God worshippers"? "God only knows", "God will lead the way", "God will tell me what to do", "May God's will be done". Where's the Free Will in that?

I personally believe that God is only in our minds. This discussion is a proof of that. As my signature says: it's a concept.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Exactly. That is the very same reason I don't even try to partake it in also. If I gave any of it a second thought, I might, but I don't. I'm too busy living my life to worry about what is going to happen to me when it ends.

Likewise. I believe Jesus existed and that he was cool. I think the only thing that needs to be taken as Gospel in the Gospel is the vibe of it. Treat one another as you would like to be treated and all that jazz. That is what it is all about for me. The question of there being a God is the least important part of the thing for me.

And also, I wouldn't mention John Lennon either! After all, one of my most defining moments on this site is when Chris wrote Imagine off as: