Re: Free Will FWIW

From: Paul Bramscher (brams006_nospam_at_tc.umn.edu)
Date: 10/29/04 

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 12:34:33 -0500

Albert wrote:
> Paul Bramscher wrote:
>
>> Albert wrote:
>>
>>> Paul Bramscher wrote:
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>> One way is to build a Church that threatened eternal damnation,
>>>> excommunicated, torched, violently crusaded, oppressed and
>>>> Inquisited for much of its existence.
>>>>
>>>> When researching my genealogy of a couple British
>>>> great-grandparents, I learned for example, that the Brits made
>>>> church attendance compulsory. With widespread illiteracy at the
>>>> time, that's a pretty powerful way to maintain an oppressed peasant
>>>> class.
>>>>
>>>> Oddly, even my peasant ancestors from Germany and Austria were able
>>>> to at least sign their names elegantly. Says something about
>>>> state-endorsed church, and the Anglo-American love of freewill in
>>>> one ear, and out the other.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I think perhaps you misposted this article. Possibly it was intended
>>> for alt.atheist?
>>
>>
>>
>> No, I believe that oppression can (and should!) be separated from
>> religion without killing religion itself. I'd be curious to see
>> what's left. Certainly, most of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic texts
>> would experience great weight loss if the violence were pulled out.
>> But that doesn't make one an atheist. Certainly there are more
>> peaceful religions, and the option of agnosticism.
>>
>> At any rate, the thread grew from concepts of free will, which the
>> Church required in its tenets to make us free moral agents. It's not
>> possible to damn someone to hell, or give him a slot in heaven if he's
>> not fully in charge of his own moral imperatives.
>>
>> I was pointing out that we're coming to realize that children and the
>> mentally retarded are not fully aware of the consequences of their
>> behavior, and that "free" will gives way to "not free" will. It's
>> quite bounded indeed.
>>
>> A male (M) kills someone (N). Should you kill M through capital
>> punishment if:
>>
>> M did so accidentally. For example, he was a diabetic, blacked out at
>> the wheel, swerved and hit a pedestrian?
>>
>> M did so while under the influence of some intoxicant that he freely
>> imbibed? And if he was addicted to it?
>>
>> M was a child? Mentally retarded? Senile?
>>
>> M found out that N killed or raped M's wife?
>>
>> These are all real-world conditionals to which the "will" is subject.
>> I'm suggesting that it's not possible to strip away all extenuating
>> circumstances (physical, mental or otherwise) and up with a "free
>> will". Take away all conditionals and you have no will at all,
>> probably. Nothing to act on or with.
>
>
> Then, by your own argument, your complaints against religion have no
> real basis.

I never suggested that basis is entailed only by will. Indeed, real
basis emerges from extenuating circumstances -- not some abstracted
appeal to causelessness (free will). On the contrary, rational appeal
to causes is the fundamental stuff of "real basis".

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