Why Do We Need Free Will Anyway?

Most theists seem to use the Free Will argument to explain evil and suffering. And most atheists argue back that free will is no excuse for the degree of evil. Both sides usually try to make free will fit in one way or another because we instintively think it's of vital importance. I'd like to ask, why is free will necessary?

When discussing the issue with a theist I was asked, "Let me ask you this: which would you have preferred: that God created you WITH free will or WITHOUT?"

I'm pressuming it was a rhetorical question and the expected response is, "WITH free will, of course!"

But I'm not going to say that. Instead I want to take a different approach. While I'm quite convinced the Free Will argument does not work I'll pretend for a moment that it does and answer the question a different way.

If I could get rid of hunger, poverty, disease, war, rape, torture, and all the other horrendous acts of humans (and nature) that cause suffering, yes, I would sacrifice free will. And what would be wrong with that? You might argue that would be sad and we'd be bored and unhappy. Not if you consider God could have created us in any way imagineable (and probably ways unimagineable) and could have created us to be perfectly content with no free will. In fact, it would have been just as easy for him to create us so that we were downright ecstactic about the idea of having no free. Yes, we could have been created as deliriously happy robot-like creatures. But, if we were deliriously happy about not having free will, if we were deliriously happy about being robot-like beings, then why would we care that we didn't have free will? We wouldn't want it because God would have created us to not want it. So what? Everyone talks of free will as if it's this magical wonderful thing we should want above all else. (And here I'm talking strictly about free will pertaining to God, not to be confused with "freedom" as in free from restrictions imposed by other humans.) But why? If God tells us that without free will we will live happy, peaceful lives, but with free will we will have disease, war, and other miseries, why should we ever strive for the latter?

Dumb Church Signs

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Should Humvees Be Illegal?

So, I was watching a show about the car of the future and they were talking about all the different alternative-energy cars people are trying to develop such as hydrogen, ethanol, lithium battery, etc.
When I first started watching the show I was feeling hopeful. But after the show I was feeling somewhat depressed. it's looking pretty grim, frankly. Nothing's going to happen soon and, even when it does happen, it won't be enough.

They're saying by the year 2050 there will be 2.5 times as many cars on the road as there are now. And, while progress is being made towards finding alternative-energy cars, it's slow and none of the options so far is particulary ideal. Burning ethanol, for example, only reduces carbon emissions by 25%. And this doesn't even take into account all the energy required to preduce the corn needed for the ethanol. As it turns out it takes nearly as much fossil fuel to produce it as it replaces. Kind of pointless, isn't it?

While this is disturbing enough, there was something else that sort of pissed me off. Besides all the research being done towards alternative-energy cars, lots of research has been done to make current gasoline powered cars run more efficiently. They say that within the last 20 years engine efficiency has increased 30%. Yeah, that's good. That's not the part that pisses me off. What pisses me off is they also said that during this same time the average fuel economy rating has gone from 22mpg to 20mpg despite this increase in efficiency. Why? Because, rather than making cars more fuel efficient, car manufacturers have been using the technology to make "sexy" cars with more horsepower, or bigger vehicles. There are more SUVs on the road now than ever before.

So in this day and age of looming energy shortages and global warming, why do we even allow gas-guzzling vehicles? Why are Humvees, for example, even legal? Who the hell needs one of those? Considering the Earth's dire future with our current practices, would it be so aweful to make it illegal to own a huge vehicle without proving you have a need? No more Humvees, no more Ford Expeditions unless you can prove you have a real need for one. For example, if you earn your living doing construction and you need a big-ass pickup truck to hall your tools and supplies then fine. But if you're just some guy with money having a midlife crisis who get a hard-on about the idea of driving a Humvee, no go for you, buddy.

Most of the time I've actually seen Humvees on the road they're being driven by middle-aged housewives buying groceries or taking the kids to Big 5 to buy new soccer balls. She's probably driving it because her dumb-ass husband had a mid-life crisis and thought he was going to reclaim his youth with it but soon realized he couldn't afford the gas to drive it to work everyday, so the wife's stuck using it to run errands. This is just selfish, wasteful, and stupid, IMO. Would it really be so bad to just outlaw this kind of crap?

Everyone Wants to Go to Heaven but No One Wants to Die

I find it odd that so many theists talk about how Heaven is such a wonderful place but at the same time are completely freaked out about dying. How are you going to get to that wonderful place if you don't die? But still, they talk about how they really want to live forever, not in the afterlife, but right here on Earth as flesh and blood human beings.

I have to wonder, do they really know how long forever is? It's a ridiculously, insanely, incomprehensibly long time. I don't know about you but I'm already sick of doing laundry and washing dishes. I just can't imagine doing that for another 100 billion plus years ... plus eternity!

Ok, but more seriously, let's suppose their real fear of dying is not death itself but the process. We have to admit, the dying process is mostly ugly and unpleasant to say the least. I mean, why wouldn't you want to go to Heaven if it really exists and is so wonderful? I think the real issue is the fear of what it takes to get there. It's the painful, fearful, bloody, getting-your-guts-ripped-out part that turns people off. So let's assume that's what they're really freaked out about and we'll pretend there is some magical door you just walked through to enter Heaven. No pain, no fear, no blood. No gut-ripping.

Awesome.

So, here you are in the afterlife and you're going to be around for all eternity.

Now what? I mean, even if Heaven is a wonderful place with everything you ever wanted, isn't it going to get boring eventually? It may take a billion years but eternity is a damn long time and a billion years isn't even going to make a dent in it.

What's so great about living for all eternity? Eternity is a really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really long time. What are you going to do forever and ever? Even if the afterlife is the most wonderful, fun place you can imagine, is it going to stay fun forever? Even if it were as great as experiencing continuous orgasms while riding a roller coaster drunk, isn't that going to get old after, oh, say, 500 million years or so? Then what?

And another thing ... Heaven's supposed to also be so wonderful because you'll be reunited with your friends and family. But heck, you can barely stand them long enough to get through Thanksgiving dinner. You don't think you'll be even more sick of them after 430 billion+ years?

Seriously, what will you do FOREVER, and what would be the point?

The Bible is NOT Factual Proof!

Why don't theists get this?
Supposed "proof" of Jesus' resurrection:

"Jesus' followers took up the pen and wrote about his life, works, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. In these documents, we find the most positive words written about Jesus' resurrection..."
(http://www.harvardhouse.com/prophetictech/new/er.htm)

I swear I cannot figure out why believers continue to think that just because something is written in the Bible it is going to convince an atheist that it's a true and factual event. They just can't seem to grasp the idea that to an atheist the Bible is just a book, written by people, just like any other book in existence. It's worse, in fact, than many other books in its credibility. Most books are either written as fiction and admit it, or are written as factual and are verifiable. For example, I might come across a non-fiction book on the formation of snowflakes and I might be skeptical that nature could form such perfect and beautiful patterns on such a tiny scale. But I could, if I wanted to, go out and get myself a microscope and grab some snowflakes and verify for myself that it is indeed true.

Yes, I realize that not all claims are so easy to verify but it still could be done in most cases if you wanted to make the effort. There is the claim, for example, that there is a little black frog that lives only on the top of Roraima, Venezuela, and crawls rather than hops like most frogs do. Although that would be much more difficult to verify I could, if I really wanted to, go to Roraima and verify the frog's existence for myself and, in fact, that is exactly what some people have done since the frog was first discovered.

So a book on snowflake patterns, or a claim about Roraima frogs, can be verified by sources outside themselves. The bible has no such verifiability. They "proof" theists keep offering is the Bible's own claims. That is no more "proof" than a person on the street claiming to be the king of England and offering a letter he wrote stating that he is king as "proof". Sorry, but proof of a claim is not proof of what is being claimed. When are you theists going to get that?

So just give up the idea that, by showing an atheist where in the Bible an event is written about, you are going to convince an atheist that it is proof that the event actually occurred. A passage in the Bible is not proof of a factual event to atheists and never will be no matter how many times you quote it. They only thing you are proving by quoting the Bible is that it was written by people who were racist, sexist, violent, scientifically ignorant, superstitious, and had some very strange ideas about the world in which they lived at the time. But what's the point of proving that to atheists when they already agree with you there?

Daylight Savings Time and Consumerism

I had a dream last night, much like I do most nights. But this one was particularly frightening. No, there were no werewolves or zombies or man-eating flying gorilla-tigers to scare me into a 3:00AM heart attack. This was, I realized sadly, more realistic than the typical bizarre and far-fetched nightmare.

In this dream the federal government had declared it illegal for private documents such as bank statements, credit card statements, medical insurance statements, etc, to be mailed to home addresses. They could also no longer be viewed online. From now on everyone must pick up their statements at a local place of business selected by the local government. Huh? Why? Well, their reasoning was that, with identity theft on the rise, this would cut down on ID theft because you would now have to present your ID in person in order to pick up any documents which might contain personal information that identity thieves could use. Seriously inconvenient but I suppose it made some sense.

Dreams are vague so I don't know the specifics but it appeared that documents were released for pick-up on specific days, like once a week on Fridays. Needless to say there were crowds and long lines on the day of release. So here in my dream I find myself standing in a line at a local gift/coffee shop, having stopped by on the way home from work. The whole rush hour traffic crowd was there. There were people everywhere throughout the shop, apparently with the same idea of "quickly" picking up their statements on the way home from a long day at work. I approach the store counter and I request my statements. The woman at the counter takes my name and informs me it will be approximately 30 minutes before they can pull my statements due to the large number of people waiting ahead of me. She gives me a number and tells me to feel free to browse the store or have a seat in the coffee shop while I wait.

I don't really care for this kind of gift shop so I wander over to the coffee shop section. Oh, what the heck. I guess I'll grab myself a $3 latte and have a seat. What else am I going to do for the next half hour?

As I sit there wondering why our government feels this horrible inconvenience and waste of time is the best way to fight ID theft I start to notice something. I have been in this gift/coffee shop before. Even on a busy Saturday there is, at most, 6-8 people here at any one time. This weekday evening, however, there are at least 50 people filling all the tables in the coffee shop section and cramming the aisles of the gift shop area, trying to occupy themselves while they dutifully wait for their statements, doing their part to fight ID theft crime. There are long lines at the cash registers and nearly everyone at the tables has a beverage, and many have packages from the gift shops by their sides as well.

At that point it dawned on me that this wasn't about ID theft at all. It was about consumerism and money. I pictured shops like this all around the country, millions of people all having to go into retail stores and wait for possibly hours to collect their statements. And what would they do to occupy their time? Shop. What else could they do? Think of the millions of dollars generated across the country by people stuck in shops, waiting, who might otherwise be home cooking dinner or watching TV. What a perfect government plan to encourage consumer spending! Consumer confidence is down so how can we force them to spend more time in stores and spend more money despite it? Surely if they're forced to sit in a shop they're end up buying something. Even if it's just a $3 latte or a $5 trinket, multiply that by millions of people across the country and that's a lot of money!

So it wasn't about ID theft at all. No, the government didn't have our best interest at heart at all. (There's a shocker, eh?) It was all about the Almighty Dollar and the economic growth.

Now, I'm not the type who is into conspiracy theory so this dream struck me as odd. But at the same time, it doesn't strike me as odd that the government would plan such a scheme to manipulate the economy. I've never doubted the government lies. (I know people who believe our government would never lie to us and that's always completely baffled me.) So, this dream actually made some scary sense.

So you're probably wondering, what has this to do with Daylight Savings Time? Well, this year, as you know, DST was expanded. DST has always annoyed me but it annoyed me more than ever this year because it came so early I was getting up in the dark. There are a lot of theories out there as to why we observe DST but I think the most widespread theory is that it saves energy. But pushing it so early into the year that I'm getting up in the dark makes no sense. All I'm doing is shifting my energy consumption from evening to morning. What good is that going to do? So I went online and did some research, trying to console myself by finding a reason for having to get up an hour earlier in the dark. Disappointingly, I found out there are actual studies showing that DST does absolutely nothing to save energy partly because, as I said, we're just shifting energy consumption from evening to morning.

What other reasons, then, could there be to justify this despised semi-annual event? There are other theories such as helping farmers, cutting crime, reducing traffic accidents, etc. But none of those arguments is very convincing. One theory does make sense, however, especially after my dream. This one theory is that DST increases consumer spending. How so? Well, the reasoning is, if it's bright, warm, and sunny after you get off work you are more likely to go out to eat or shop. If it's cold and dark you just want to get home and get warm and comfy. It makes sense because it's often true for me. If it's cold, dark, and miserable out I am less likely to want to stop anywhere on the way home from work.

One other reason I'm becoming convinced this is the real reason behind DST is that President Bush supports it. Conserving energy helps the environment and I know Bush is never about helping the environment. (How long did he deny Global Warminng when the majority had accepted it?) So, obviously, if Bush is for DST it is not about saving energy. If he supports it thne it makes much more sense that it's about consumerism and economic growth.

Think about that the next time you stop to shop on the way home from work this spring.