Michael Carnright

On 04 Mar 2000 15:00:54 GMT, george…@aol.com (Georgeo57) wrote:

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>It is quite insane to believe human beings have a free will.  Well perhaps
>insane is not the right word.  Is it insane in this day and age to believe the
>world is flat?, or that the Sun revolves around the Earth? Well if it is, then
>people who believe we have free wills are insane, but I’d prefer to refer to
>them as simply being stupid.

>Oh, that’s not to say I blame them for their stupidity.  Of course not, for
>since everything is predetermined, noone has a say over how intelligent or
>stupid one is.  In fact there seems to be a certain advantage in their
>maintaining their stupid insistance that they have free wills.  Its kind of
>like how little kids prefer to believe there really is a Santa Claus, and it
>really is kind of cruel to try to ruin their pleasant delusion.  Funny, how we
>have an institution called Christmas that has as one of its major aspects the
>perpetuation of delusion in our young ones.

>Anyway, I don’t mean to spoil your pleasure if you believe you have a free
>will.  I would like to understand why this belief is so important to you.  I
>mean, it really is a kind of arrogance, like the belief once held by many
>people that the Earth is the center of the Universe.  

>But, really, we have a situation where about 99.99999% of the human population
>is suffering under the delusion that what we think and feel and say and do is
>under our control.  Of course, if this were really the case then we would all
>be very intelligent and successful and happy, etc. all of the time.

>Oh, right, some of you deluded souls would be quick to plead "we don’t have
>full control, but we do have some control!"  Right.  Like a rock has some
>control over its flight as its thrown.

>So who can we blame for having most of us suffer under the delusion that we
>humans have a free will?  Certainly we can’t blame God, because His will is
>just as predetermined as is ours.  In other words, just as all of our thoughts
>and acts originate in the eternal past, so do God’s.  

>Now some of your religious neanderthals might scream at this point "hey, but
>God is impotant, all powerful…He can do whatever He wants.  Oh really?   I’m
>sure you’ve heard the question that asks; if God is all powerful, can He create
>a rock so big that even He can’t lift it?  Hum….My question would be could
>God destroy Himself.  Of course if He could that would end all claims to His
>being Eternal.

>But we have strayed.  Mankind is at present suffering from a collective
>delusion that we have free will, and its really sad because it sets rich
>against poor, black against white, tall against short, stupid against
>intelligent, Americans against most of the rest of the world, etc. etc, etc.

>I mean, were humankind to get over our collective insanity, we would recognize
>that whatever is dividing us is really what we should be fighting, not
>ourselves.  But enough of the political sermonizing.

>Here’s some religious sermonizing.  Religion is about getting back to God.
>Somehow it appears that we, moreso than, it seems, all of the other species of
>life on the planet, have strayed from what we arrogantly refer to in lower life
>forms as instinct- namely a really strong bond with God, or intelligence, or
>whatever it suits you to call Him  or it.  I mean when we believe we have a
>will separate from Gods’ we by this act separate ourselves from Him.

>But its not our fault of course!  I mean, if we really had free will we would
>will our selves not to make mistakes like believing we have free wills.

>Wanna know my take on it?  well I think alot of guys refuse to understand that
>free will is a myth because they don’t want to offend the women, who, don’t
>seem to be able to accept this truth as readily as do men.  Mind you, I’m not
>knocking women.. they do seem to have a keener instinct, or intuition than we
>do, but this isn’t about that.  I mean, I think that when a guy tries to
>explain to a woman that free will is impossible, a woman will begin to think
>"well that means nothing we do matters, and she’ll get all teary eyed and the
>guy, in order to keep getting laid, perhaps, will say "oh no, Im just
>kidding… we do have free wills, and what we do does matter, lets’ go to bed."
> And that would be that.

>Again, I do love women, but it seems we men have been in the thinking game alot
>longer than they have so understanding the impossibility of free will would
>come easier to us.  Just as understanding what a crying child wants would, of
>course, come easier to most women.  Please don’t accuse me of generalising,
>because the whole of psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc is based on
>generalizing.  Of course there are exceptions, but thats besides the point.

>Anyway, Wanna know what mankind’s next leap of conciousness will be?  You
>guessed it,… we will all someday overcome the delusion of free will and live
>much more happy and healthy lives as a result.  Well, I really am just
>guessing.  It could be that we continue to retain our delusion of free will and
>continue blaming ourselves and each other for everything, and sooner or later
>we will just all destroy ourselves and everyone else.  Problem solved.

>Death.  I don’t mean to change the subject, but whats all this dislike of death
>about?  I mean, presumably we are dead, or at least not alive, into the eternal
>past, and once we die, we’ll remain dead into the eternal future. so does it
>really matter if we live or die?  No.  Reincarnation?  Seems like another
>story, like Adam and Eve, etc.  Maybe we do reincarnate, but why would it have
>to be on this planet.  There’s an eternity of space out there to explore.

>I do digress.  Free will, the ultimate delusion.  Mother nature does love her
>deception.  She causes us to believe the earth is flat, and here’s another one.
> If you were to have asked someone last century whether or not our world was in
>motion they would have considered you insane for asking.  I mean, do you feel
>the earth moving they would say with consumate arrogance and stupidity.  Of
>course we now know that our earth is hurtling through space , along with the
>rest of our galaxy at the rate of millions of miles per hour, ( or something
>like that).  Yes mother nature does love her deceptions.

>Unfortunately 99.99999% of us are not intelligent to understand that free will
>is impossible and I’m not intelligent enough to know how to get them to
>understand this truth.  I mean, imagine trying to tell a two year old that
>Santa is just a figment of his little imagination.  Waaaahhh.  He is too
>real… he is too reall.  Hard to reason with that.

>On to Christians, Jews, Moslems, Buddists, and Hindus.  A good bunch of people
>generally speaking, leaving aside the inquisition, etc., but really they have
>done a really good job in perpetuating morals and values that, unfortunately
>our present day world doesn’t like to abide by much any more.  But, alongside
>all of the good they have done, and continue to do, aside from scaring people
>with the threat of eternal damnation if they don’t agree with them, the
>unfortunate thing about this lot is that they prefer delusion to reason.  I
>mean they are like perpetual two year olds clinging to their belief in Santa
>Claus.  You can’t reason with them, so they maintain their delusion and the
>world stays in a state of blame.

>they probably will get the armageddon their hoping for, if for no other reason
>than so they can say, I told you so.  Well.  if the world stays stuck to its
>delusion that we have free wills and are therefore quite right in attributing
>cause, and blame, and punishment, etc. on ourselves and each other, I don’t
>have the power to stop it.  

>I mean, if I did, I would.  If I were God, I’d do away with this whole pain
>thing.  I mean, who needs it.  Of course some stupid masochist will argue- but
>you cant have pleasure without pain, its impossible.  Hah.  It’s just as
>possible to spend your entire life in the sunlight and never experience
>darkness as it is possible to have pleasure without feeling the pain.  

>Pain and pleasure really is what its all about, but that is another story.
>Free will, what a concept.  I chose to eat vanilla ice cream instead of
>chocolate.  Oh really, and did you also decide to prefer the taste of vanilla
>to chocolate.  No, Im not going to get into explaining the logic of why free
>will is impossible.  If people are too stupid, or brainwashed to understand,
>that’s the way it will have to be.  There is, again, a price to be paid for
>that, but that too is another story.

>Have you tired of reading this stuff yet.  If what I’ve written seems
>unpleasant to you, you might want to ask yourself why you keep reading.  Well,
>you keep reading because something inside you is causing you to do so.  

>Actually, I’m getting tired of writing this stuff.  It would be so much easier
>if humankind just acknowledged that this planet Earth has really never been
>very friendly to us.  How about we all put our heads together, think really
>hard, and blow it to smitherines thereby freeing our souls to explore more
>pleasant parts of the universe.  I hear Venus is pretty cool.

>Im serious. It could be that we just choose, theres that word again, we were
>compelled to choose this planet as our home to our disadvantage.  Kind of like
>we took a wrong turn.  Well, maybe our religious friends got the part about
>Earth finally becoming a paradise right and all will turn out well in the end.

>Which reminds me.  People are fond of saying you can’t have pleasure without
>pain while in the same breath extolling the virtues of a Heaven that is
>pleasant beyond pleasure.  You mean on Earth you can’t have

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