AB,
But the reality is that I have demonstrable freedom to choose.
To deny this obvious freedom would be impossible for me, not just because of my Christian faith, but because of the belief in what I am and what I can do, and in what I see other people do. And it is confirmed in all the creative, artistic and investigative achievements produced since mankind came on the scene. Achievements which would be impossible without the personally driven freedom which can't be derived from within the materialistic, purposeless processes of physically driven cause and effect. And you will no doubt use your consciously driven freedom to label my post as personal incredulity, but without you being able to define an origin for this personal deliberation of incredulity.
Do yourself a favour: print what follows and Blu-Tak it somewhere very close to your computer so the next time you’re tempted to repeat this nonsense you can quickly look up where you're about to go wrong again.
Here’s what you know already because it’s been explained to you countless times (even though you keep just ignoring it):
1. Many beliefs that rely on perceptions, intuitions, feelings etc turn out to be not true: the planet isn’t flat, blood isn’t blue, you don’t actually touch anything. What this tells you is that sincerely held beliefs can often be wrong beliefs,
no matter how sincere.
2. The word “freedom” is
not defined as “free of any logical constraints”. Such a freedom wouldn’t be freedom at all – it would just be incoherent or chaotic. Choices must be caused by
something – if not they aren’t choices at all, they’re just randomness.
3. There is no means to determine the “ultimate” source of anything. “Ultimate” certainty would mean that it’s impossible to be wrong, something inherently we cannot know because logically there would be no way to eliminate even the
possibility of an unknown unknown that would show us to be wrong. Assuming “God” as an ultimate truth and then forcing your lived experience to fit with that “top down” is fundamentally bad thinking; rather, all we can do is to edge our way cautiously towards deeper and more functional truths “bottom up”. That’s what science does, and that’s why demanding to know the “ultimate source” of freedom is a meaningless question.
4. The experience
of something tells you very little about the explanation
for it. No matter how strongly you
feel “free” to make decisions, that tells you nothing about what’s actually happening under the bonnet in terms of your subconscious processes. Your fundamental mistake is to insist that the way something feels to you must also therefore give you the proper explanation for it.
5. My ‘phone feeling solid to me allows me to pick it up and to make calls with it. The perception “solid” provides me with a
functional reality, even though physics will tell me that it’s actually mostly empty space held together by fundamental forces. Similarly your sense of freedom allows you to fall in love and to deal with the DVLA. It too provides you with a
functional reality that allows you to engage with the world, even though a very different reality sits beneath that. That’s why, “but how can I be held guilty for murder then?” is a fundamentally misplaced question.
6. Logical fallacies
are always wrong. No matter how many times you repeat them, they are
still always wrong. The moment you collapse into an
argumentum ad consequentiam, the argument from personal incredulity, the
post hoc ergo proper hoc, the negative proof fallacy and on and (wearily) on you exit the argument automatically. Why? Because your argument
is necessarily wrong. Does making wrong arguments for a conclusion (“God” etc) mean that the conclusion is false? Not necessarily, but it does mean that the arguments you think lead to it do no such thing and so you should either abandon the conjecture or find some better arguments for it. It would help you a great deal therefore if you found out what logical fallacies entail, and if you avoided using them in future.
7. Logic is logic. There’s no such thing as “material” logic, “physical” logic, “supernatural” logic or any other qualified logic. If you want to conjure up a “soul” or similar then it’d still be bound by logic – your only alternative to that is to throw up your hands, tells us “it’s magic” and give up even the pretence of an argument.
8. When you post some bad thinking and someone else takes the time to correct it, it’s bad form just to ignore the correction in favour of repeating the mistake and it makes you look dishonest when you do it. No matter how strongly you may feel that 2+2=5, just repeating it when people have explained to you countless times why it isn’t is idiotic.
9. Assertion is not argument. Every time you post a "must", a "has to be", an "obvious truth" etc without qualification kind you're just wasting air.
So now you have no excuse for carrying on as you have been – the next time you’re tempted to post something just skim through this list first and, when you see the error you’re about to make, type something else instead. And if you’re wondering what that might be, here’s a suggestion: how about finally actually engaging openly and honestly with the arguments ranged against you rather than just pretending that they haven’t been made?
You’re welcome.
