FREE WILL
The burning question about life on this planet is the question of free will. Clearly an ameoba doesn't survive because of any free will or conscious decisions. But at the other extreme what about humans? If God controls everything then there really is no ethics, for after all, whatever happens is God's will. "May God's will be done" is really an oxymoronic statement. Like God needs any acquiescence for His will to be done. I don't think so. Certainly God's will trumps any human will. Perhaps free will is a matter of degrees. My cats, I assume, have a free will to behave, or suffer the understood consequences. I doubt God calls the shot there. Prayer presupposes that God is willing to impose His will if He so chooses. What forces exist in the absence of God's will in a particular incidence? To me, the evolutionary process is God's will, or creation might be the better word.
The issue is quite complex, certainly above my pay grade. If Honschnivel dies of kidney disease in 1990 and a doctor states in 1960 that Honschinvel will die of kidney disease in 1990 then the doctor told the truth. The truth then, must have been predetermined in 1960. Honschnivel is then not capable of any free will to alter the outcome. Of course all this is a play on words. We know, we really do know, that many people make adjustments in their lives precisely so that they can increase the likelihood of living longer. We know if we study harder we are more likely to score higher on a test. We don't ever really say it is up to God how hard we study. Thus, we are at least free to make many decisions which affect the quality or length of our lives. To some extent we have free will.
On the other hand all that we do are essentially some sort of chemical interactions via our internal environment. Every single thing we do has a biochemical basis. This doesn't sound like free will. We can't predict the future because the laws of evolution are based on diversity, chance, and environmental factors. These are after all, God's laws for our planet. Can God predict the future? If so, how can free will then exist at all? I suspect it totally unnerves us to think our lives are controlled by chance, diversity and environmental factors----even if the evolutionary process, the creation of God, operates in exactly such a way. When uncertainty about life exists in our minds we try hard to create a certainty, mostly via religious beliefs.
The choices seem to be: that there is no free will, that everything evolves and happens according to God's grand plan. If so there is no ethics, no free will, no judgement, no responsibility, no competition, etc. In other words much of what we spend energy and time on in life is purposeless; OR, their is limited but essentially meaningless free will that simply is allowed to alter our emotional state but has no real meaning outside of personally altered emotional states, OR there is free will which matters, that changes the evolutionary process in ways which are not controlled by God. The religious right in any religion can justify any dogma, injustices, or actions of any kind by simply insisting that is they way God wishes things to be or they wouldn't be that way. This was used to justify slavery, limited rights for women, parental or employer child abuse, genocide, war, limited rights for gays, 'manifest destiny', American Indian exploitation, etc. In other words, if anyone or any group doesn't like the way God rules the planet, tough. But this mentality seems lacking in rational thought. If some individual goes around telling others God is telling him he must kill a particular person we claim he is insane. But if a religious leader or group of religious leaders say God wants certain people enslaved or limited in their rights, etc. this is not insanity but often accepted as a special order directly from God.
It is of course true that every action by anyone is really a biochemical process. HOWEVER, original thoughts do happen. No current understanding of physiology can explain an original thought. We can explain, to some degree, why anyone is angry, hungry, sexually aroused, jealous, etc. but an original thought is totally another matter. And yet original thoughts happen and change history. What do we mean by original? Is this truly the product of the person with the original thought or did God simply use that person's mind to generate such a thought? It just seems logical that if free will exists then God's evolutionary process is not predetermined. Humans may create the rules for football, but after having created the rules for the game, we don't know who will win any particular game. Perhaps God created the Universe and the laws which govern evolution, but watches the the process work with the same uncertainty we watch a football game. Does God interfere when he doesn't like how the evolutionary process is going? Does God really bless America or any person's behavior on the planet? If so, He is not consistent. The worst can happen to the best and good things happen to the bad, whether we are referring to individuals or nations. The evidence seems to be that God is not micromanaging the evolutionary process. I always feel football players are wasting their time gathering in prayer circles before a game. I have come to feel it would be absurd for me to pray for God to help me for problems in my life when the lives of most others are so much more in need of help. For me to feel in any way that God likes me better than others is patently self serving. Patriotism, family values, religious sects, manifest destiny, ethnic biases----all this sort of stuff is of the same nature---God favors some over others. Any examination of history makes clear this is not so. Some may say the Pope, for example, is special, but that is a strange statement in that Popes have been clearly wrong on many matters in history and Popes themselves have committed every crime imaginable over history. All the evidence points to the Popes being every bit as human as anyone else. The only real distinguishing feature of any Pope is the garb they dress in. And the same goes for every individual or group who has ever claimed some sort of divine blessing or protection.
If God created the evolutionary process and is a hands off creator of that process then free will exists. Diversity, chance, and the environment really do then drive the process. People are free to believe anything. One could, for example, believe that God controls which sperm combines with which egg whenever fertilization occurs. If this is true then God really does favor some over others. But it CERTAINLY cannot be any earned favor. To believe this kind of Divine control seems a huge stretch of sense and logic. Perhaps the truth is we all want to be more important than we really are. No one can logically describe the process of evolution, which has been around for billions of years, as anything less than amazing and progressive. That we as individuals, as part of that process, are governed by chance and our environment is emotionally deflating. Our very existence is governed by chance, we are dealt certain cards to play in a certain kind of environment and we have nothing more than an opportunity to better ourselves and others for our brief existence. The real difference with humans, compared to other species, is that we can, through our innate sense of ethics, make it possible for the less fortunate to live better lives. Ethics, like all other aspects of the evolutionary process, is evolving with time. We are better at ethics today than thousands of years ago. BUT, our glaring failure has been to yet master responsible human reproduction. The consequences of this, on so many fronts, is now closing in on us. It is depressing that there is no evidence we are getting any handle on this problem. We have overpopulated the planet and put many species and natural resources at peril. 'Holy mackeral Andy, we's done got ourselves in a terrible fix'. We's certainly has. The only thing for certain is that "Time stays, we Go" We have met the enemy and it is us. We pray to God to help us individually and collectively. God's created evolutionary process is His gift to us, individually and collectively. This process has given the human species ethics and reason. Reason dictates no species can overpopulate the planet without dire consequences to that species and other species. Ethics is the avenue whereby the less fortunate can be given a more level playing field and help to live a better life. It is not democracy vs socialism or any other kind of ism. It is reason and ethics. Our prayers have already been answered and humans have the tools to improve life for all. Right now selfish tunnel visioned greed prevails over reason and ethics. The cliff is ever closer now and it may well be too late to put on the brakes. No matter, Mother Nature bats last and corrections, no matter how severe, will take place. Evolution is full of catastrophic periods.
I don't feel God likes me any better than anyone else. I also understand most of my blessing have been unearned and required some luck. I think I understand ethics and the purpose of ethics. What I feel most, however, is very lucky to have been born in a place and time in history which seems fortuitous. Perhaps the good life so many of us have experienced in our lifetime is about to collapse. I mean, if so, did many of us hit the jackpot or what? Much better than the lottery.
