Free will? My witch's eye!
Stick to the antiscience. At least there you aren't resorting to a simplicity aspiring to
Tony1's brand of apologism. This, for instance, since that first paragraph was ludicrous:
Just because He can doesn't mean that He will, or should. He didn't want to interfere with our own free will to decide whether or not we want to follow Him.
If God wanted humans to use free will to elect to obey him, he would not have to bribe us at the very least, or threaten us with deprivation.
Consider for a moment two pagan slogans: on the one hand, the Rede; to the other, the Law of Thelema. They both sound very similar, but the Law of Thelema makes an
assumption about human nature that the Rede instructs toward directly. Where the Rede states,
An thou harm none, the Law of Thelema assumes that harming none is implicit in
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
There are no bribes, no threats. In the Law of Thelema, it is assumed that one would not create detriment for themselves by harming others, a perspective found in the living manifestation of the Threefold Law. It assumes that common sense would lead a person to the ideal benefit; a dangerous assumption, indeed, in a world so ravaged by the Christian pursuit of victory.
Think of Old Testament law: much of it seems commonsense. No buggery? Well, there's always considerations of disease and wasted seed whilst the tribe wanders aimlessly through the desert. No tattoos? Again, disease. I can't yet figure the temple locks bit, but I figure there's a number of reasons why I haven't. Why should one not covet their neighbor's wife? Because the guy will beat the holy living shite out of you if you do--though apparently I've gotten away with it more times than I realized, so perhaps that's not the best example to put against experience. What happens to a community when everyone is jealous of each other and out for vengeance? Hardly a positive state of affairs. Can you see the common sense here?
It's why racism is bad for society: common sense. It is better for the community and the indviduals comprising said community if people are not in a constant state of distrust based solely on a paranoia of skin color and the practical result thereof. One can determine from human experience that racism is not accurate, and that such inaccuracies compel people to make decisions which inaccurately describe their best benefit.
A juxtaposition of results works here: a common, mistaken interpretation of the Law of Thelema would have people behaving with ludicrous greed and inconsideration in their pursuit of goals. This breakdown comes from the same place many religions break: undereducation. Apply it to racism:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Certes, one compelled to hate another for ethnic bigotry might find justification in the Law. However, as we see with racist policies in the United States, such behavior brings about a detriment to the whole community. In the 1980's we in the United States blamed much of the nation's drug problem on minorities, since that was where the problem was most visible. Yet consider the imbalance of the crack standard: 2,389 of 2,400 prosecutions of the crack standard were against black Americans in 1995 while 65% of the crack users were white. What this created was a community of black people who have served prison time, who then find it harder to get good jobs because of their record, and remain in conditions of poverty and reduced opportunity where crime becomes a more legitimate means of advance. As we saw with Alcohol Prohibition, the Drug War fostered gang wars in the 1980's. The Drug War Prohibition has largely centered within those minority communities already deprived of economic empowerment by a society that largely held their skin color against them. The racism of the police only added to the stress that racism already wrought on society, inciting more desperate conditions, causing paranoia on the market and increasing the violence associated with the black market. Thus, while one does what one will in the form of pressing minorities in quest of a pale-faced dominance of society, that will only contributed to the danger of that society toward the individual. To do what one will, then, in this case, is to the detriment of the one. Should that one realize that detriment, the one has a chance to reduce the detriment by reexamining the will.
To lead a people with bribes and threats, though, creates a certain jealousy among that people. To limit the argument to a specific example for a moment, I might comment on what I have observed among Seventh-Day Adventism: it is difficult for a person to "compete" in society--that is, keep up with the Joneses, as the saying has it--and still honor the precepts of their faith. Many SDA's are aware of this, and attempt to shield their children amid a web of propaganda that leaves the child paranoid about society. The fear of falling behind, and the jealousy of what other people enjoy--worldly pleasures, for instance--brings about only one seemingly acceptable solution: to prohibit
everyone as one prohibits their own self. Here we can step back from a very vivid example and attempt to apply it slightly more generally. What harm does a homosexual in society do to a heterosexual Christian? It has not been accurately documented, insofar as I can tell. However, we see Christians in Oregon attempting to deny homosexuals the liberty of participating in society, attempting to deny them equality before the law. One feels better about one's own prohibitions if one can apply them to others. In 1992, this killed two people in a firebombing. In the larger scheme, however, the laws proposed by Christians in Oregon would create an ostracism, enforce a separation of rights from people, and create a detriment to society by marginalizing a segment of the population. History demonstrates that such arbitrary marginalizations are bad for society; in older times, religious folk burned at the stake for simple doctrinal disagreements; in the last century, womens' rights have advanced, though in the oppressive segments of society we still see violence against women justified by the inability of the women to overcome violence with violence. (Incidentally, one of George W Bush's last death warrants was for a woman who killed her husband in an attempt to stop bone-fracturing physical abuse. How is it good for society to force women to submit to beatings and sexual violations?)
If anything disappoints me acutely about the society I live in, it is that we can have accomplished so much more on behalf of all people if we weren't obsessing on the divisions we create in our consciences. We have a military budget that surpasses the financial power of many nations--why must we dedicate ourselves so greatly to the killing of other people for greed? (Not,
Why do we? for most of us have a pretty good picture of the arbitrary divisions people make, and the results thereof. But
Why must we? Who says Jews and Muslims can't get along? Only the Jews and Muslims and their unverifiable assumptions. Irish Catholics and British Protestants? Men and women? Blacks and whites? It is merely an assumption that there is no better way.)
This is all caused by assumptions of reward, and the standards thereof. And fear of deprivation and punishment. It's a comparison of how one person stands in relation to another as relates the goal. People do not abide by common sense, but by the greed of attaining the promised reward.
God
does interfere with the free-will decision by placing other factors on the table. We see that pursuit of redemption has had a wicked effect on the human endeavor; and, yes, this is largely a matter of undereducation: Christians throughout history have accepted the reality of the Devil on faith, yet that very Devil cannot fit into the scheme without either invalidating the scope and authority of God, or else making the Devil a part of the divine plan and therefore a concept to be respected. And we see what this has created: witch-burnings, property seizures, wars ... are these things really the fruits of faith in God?
In the mouth of Society are many diseased teeth, decayed to the bones of the jaws. But Society makes no efforts to have them extracted and be rid of the affliction. It contents itself with gold fillings. Many are the dentists who treat the decayed teeth of Society with glittering gold. (Gibran)
thanx,
Tiassa
