Do you prefer "free-will suffering"or "robots

[Jagella]

As we all should know, apologists often employ the "free-will" defense against any argument from suffering or evil that serves to cast doubt on the existence of the Christian god. Doubters might maintain that no good god would allow suffering. Since suffering exists, God probably doesn't exist. Apologists often counter telling us that God needs to allow suffering so that we may have free will to do evil as well as good.

Needless to say, there are several objections that might be raised to this apologetic, but I'd like to start out by pointing out that it makes an assumption that may not hold for all people. That assumption is that suffering and evil is universally preferred over our being robots programmed to do only good. Personally, I'd take the robots! My being programmed to do good is fine with me, and giving up my choice to do evil is a small price to pay to attain safety, security, and happiness. Besides, I have no desire to do evil. So my being programmed to do only good would make little difference for me.

Question for Debate: Do you prefer suffering or people being "robots"?

[Jagella]

I'm pretty sure that you are among those who has regularly advanced the argument that the goodness of someone driven by fear of a vengeful deity is inferior to the goodness of someone motivated by reason and compassion. Makes sense to me. But now it seems that you find it convenient to also argue that 'goodness' which derives not even from an evaluation of possible consequences ('fear') but is entirely forced and predetermined has equal or similar merit to freely chosen goodness! I don't see any moral value at all in an automaton regardless of how much it helps people - let alone how much it might help other automatons. Are these just arbitrary positions you advance on different occasions, or is there some coherent rationale behind them?

If you can post a direct quotation of something I said about which goodness is "gooder," then we can take it from there. But let me say for now that from a consequential standpoint, goodness from programming is no different from goodness from choice.

[Divine Insight]

I'm pretty sure that you are among those who has regularly advanced the argument that the goodness of someone driven by fear of a vengeful deity is inferior to the goodness of someone motivated by reason and compassion. Makes sense to me.

I don't see where this applies. I agree with Jagella. Goodness is goodness no matter what causes it to be.

What you are talking about is judging the moral character of an individual. It does seem that someone who is only being good out of fear of punishment is not as moral in character as someone who is motivated by reason and compassion to be moral.

But that is a statement about someone's character, not about goodness. And it does make sense that if someone is only being good out of fear of punishment that they would otherwise be bad if there was no threat of punishing being held over them. So a person who is only being good to avoid punishment isn't a "good person" in terms of character. But obviously their behavior would be good simply because they are behaving that way to avoid punishment.

But now it seems that you find it convenient to also argue that 'goodness' which derives not even from an evaluation of possible consequences ('fear') but is entirely forced and predetermined has equal or similar merit to freely chosen goodness! I don't see any moral value at all in an automaton regardless of how much it helps people - let alone how much it might help other automatons. Are these just arbitrary positions you advance on different occasions, or is there some coherent rationale behind them?

If Christians need God or Jesus in order to be "good" then they are already submitting to becoming "automatons".

And if they don't need God or Jesus to be good, then this flies in the face of Christianity. If you can be good without Jesus or God, then you most certainly don't need them in order to be good.

And you surely wouldn't need Jesus to be crucified on your behalf as your penal substitute.

Christianity doesn't even allow people to be good via their own free will choice.

That's absolutely taboo. If you can be good without Jesus then you don't need Jesus to "save" you from being a bad person.

[Mithrae]

I'm pretty sure that you are among those who has regularly advanced the argument that the goodness of someone driven by fear of a vengeful deity is inferior to the goodness of someone motivated by reason and compassion. Makes sense to me. But now it seems that you find it convenient to also argue that 'goodness' which derives not even from an evaluation of possible consequences ('fear') but is entirely forced and predetermined has equal or similar merit to freely chosen goodness! I don't see any moral value at all in an automaton regardless of how much it helps people - let alone how much it might help other automatons. Are these just arbitrary positions you advance on different occasions, or is there some coherent rationale behind them?

If you can post a direct quotation of something I said about which goodness is "gooder," then we can take it from there.

Poor grammar and misuse of quotation marks notwithstanding, the point occurred to me in part because of some comments in one of your most recent threads:

• To posit that atheism causes mass murder is a really stupid theory. Does the writer of that article think that if people don't believe in an invisible man in the sky, then they'll become mass murderers? Maybe the writer would! LOL
  . . . .
  
  It's very possible that some people do need a "big-brother god" eyeing them every minute of the day to keep them in line. If the author(s) feel that way, then they may assume that everybody needs constant surveillance to be good.

Of course it may well be that I've misunderstood you, that these comments were merely speculative insults against the authors in question rather than any kind of opinion on the respective merits of those grounds for moral behaviour. But giving you the benefit of the doubt they seem to be denigrating morality derived primarily from authority or fear. In any case, if I have misunderstood you here and misremembered/confused earlier posts with the various others who have made the point I outlined there's an easy way to clear it up; do you believe that authoritarian or fear-inspired goodness is on par with goodness derived from reason or compassion, given comparable results?

But let me say for now that from a consequential standpoint, goodness from programming is no different from goodness from choice.

Goodness is a value judgement; how can it be achieved without exercising judgement? Unless you're equivocating between different uses of the word. A blanket might do a good job of keeping someone warm, perhaps even saving their life, but do you commend it as morally praiseworthy for doing so? Or the plants which so selflessly grow our food?

Conversely - and more worryingly - the position you are advocating would seemingly mean that if a person were forcibly doped up on drugs that sent them into a murderous rampage, you would make no moral distinction between that and someone who chose to go out and kill those people.

[Mithrae]

I'm pretty sure that you are among those who has regularly advanced the argument that the goodness of someone driven by fear of a vengeful deity is inferior to the goodness of someone motivated by reason and compassion. Makes sense to me.

I don't see where this applies. I agree with Jagella. Goodness is goodness no matter what causes it to be.

What you are talking about is judging the moral character of an individual.

Which is what most religions are talking about too. Building an argument hinging around a conception of 'goodness' that religions don't emphasize is not likely to be very productive.

Christianity doesn't even allow people to be good via their own free will choice.

Pretty sure that's an even more whopping strawman/misrepresentation - Calvinists aside - but I imagine there's Christian folk around who'll ignore or correct it as they will.

Edit: The more common Christian doctrine is actually one of my favourite left-handed compliments: "It's not that you aren't good, it's just that you're not good enough"

[Divine Insight]

Pretty sure that's an even more whopping strawman/misrepresentation - Calvinists aside - but I imagine there's Christian folk around who'll ignore or correct it as they will.

They would have a hard time "correcting it", unless they want to claim that they can obtain salvation due to their own goodness chosen by their own free will choice.

Edit: The more common Christian doctrine is actually one of my favourite left-handed compliments: "It's not that you aren't good, it's just that you're not good enough"

This is just a deterioration of the whole theology into extreme apologetics that can be seen as nothing other than an act of desperation to save an otherwise failed theology.

To begin with there is nothing in the original religion that says, "Thou Shalt Be Perfect". And any rational person knows that such a demand would be extremely unreasonable anyway.

Moreover, that type of apology fails for other reasons as well. Unless this God thought that he was creating humans who were capable of perfection judging them to not be perfect would be a heinous act on his part.

You can't have a creator creating imperfect humans and then trying to pin the blame on them for being imperfect. And if this God were capable of creating perfect humans then we'd all be perfect and there would be no problem.

So the apology you have just offered fails miserably. It doesn't help anyway. If perfection is the criteria, and you can't be perfect, then you'd still need to be converted into a robot by Jesus in the end anyway. Otherwise how could you ever become perfect?

So this fails to address the core problem that Jagella has exposed.

It doesn't help the concept of free will being the culprit if you cannot freely chose to be perfect. All you've done was change the original goalpost to yet another unattainable goalpost. So you are still in the same situation of not being able to be perfect via your own free will. So much for free will having anything to do with Christianity.

Free will does NOT support Christianity. Christianity doesn't allow you to obtain salvation via your own free will no matter where you move the goalpost. Moving it to the impossible goal of perfection doesn't help a dog gone thing.

You still couldn't reach it via your own free will choice.

So much for free will and Christianity. Your apology doesn't help that cause at all.

[wiploc]

I rather like my free will. Not wanting to give it up.

There's a quote, something like, "There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so." If we were robots, there would be no good in the world. No evil either, but nothing to make life worth living.

If there were a tri-omni (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent) god, then we would have free will without evil. So, if gods existed, the OP would be offering a false dichotomy.

In the real world, sans gods, we can work toward less evil without giving up free will.

But if there were gods, and if they were torturing people for eternity in Hellfire, then this world would be, on balance, an evil place. So, as Azrael pointed out in the movie Dogma, we would be better off not existing, or as robots.

[liamconnor]

As we all should know, apologists often employ the "free-will" defense against any argument from suffering or evil that serves to cast doubt on the existence of the Christian god. Doubters might maintain that no good god would allow suffering. Since suffering exists, God probably doesn't exist. Apologists often counter telling us that God needs to allow suffering so that we may have free will to do evil as well as good.

Needless to say, there are several objections that might be raised to this apologetic, but I'd like to start out by pointing out that it makes an assumption that may not hold for all people. That assumption is that suffering and evil is universally preferred over our being robots programmed to do only good. Personally, I'd take the robots! My being programmed to do good is fine with me, and giving up my choice to do evil is a small price to pay to attain safety, security, and happiness. Besides, I have no desire to do evil. So my being programmed to do only good would make little difference for me.

Question for Debate: Do you prefer suffering or people being "robots"?

I am hoping that everyone here realizes how logically ridiculous the proposition is, yes?

Do we honestly think there would be a "I, Divine Insight", that survived such a reduction? I remember an idiotic response by famous atheist Dawkins who said something to the effect "it is cruel to allow retarded children to be born" (the basic idea was that abortion should be allowed to women whose fetuses were severely disabled).

The logic here is obviously ridiculous. How do such disabled fetuses benefit from no longer existing?

Likewise, what would I benefit from being reduced to automata? Can I still procreate and rejoice over my son? Can I still behold a sunset and stand in awe? Can I still read Robert Frost and smile at his irony?

those who think the OP question was a legitimate question do not understand human psychology. I invite them to sit down and stair at the wall and think, "Okay, now let me stare at the wall without free will, what would that be like".

[ttruscott]

Besides, I see no reason why we cannot be programmed to be good.

The Bible ends with the marriage of HIS holy creation with GOD Himself AFTER all evil has been excoriated from the earth. This implies that since the Bible is the story of GOD's interaction with the people of Earth that this marriage culminates and fulfills HIS purpose for our creation.

It is an absolute imperative that a real marriage must be entered into by the free will of both parties or there is no real marriage and that neither marriage nor true love can be coerced but must be freely chosen.

Freedom to choose to accept a marriage proposal implies freedom to reject it!

Therefore no matter how much you like the Stepford Wives (subservient) position of the robotic partner, it is plain that YHWH does not share this rather bizarre attitude and rejects coerced marriage and coerced sex.

[Divine Insight]

I am hoping that everyone here realizes how logically ridiculous the proposition is, yes?

No one would be happier than me if we truly have free will and will be judged on how well we have used it after we die. That would be the greatest reality ever for me, if it actually existed.

But even that scenario flies in the face of Christianity. Christianity isn't about how well people were able to exercise free will. Christianity is entirely about people confessing that they can't handle free will and need Jesus to turn them into automaton robots before they can behave themselves.

So the free will argument doesn't support Christianity anyway.

[bjs]

To be clear, the free will defense has nothing to do with preference. It is not about people wanting or not wanting to be free. The free will defense is that it is morally better for people to be free since that gives us the capacity to be good people.

I'm not sure if I follow your logic. If we have "free will," then we can choose what we prefer. So free will has everything to do with preference.

Free will involves preference. The free will defense is about goodness.

Besides, I see no reason why we cannot be programmed to be good. Whether we choose to be good or the great programmer in the sky chooses that we be good, we are good either way.

We can be programmed to do good; we cannot be programmed to be good.

A rock can be used to build a hospital or bash in a mans head. The rock isnt good or evil. The person using it is.

A robot can programmed to cut lumber for houses or cut people in half. The robot isnt good or evil. The person who programmed it is.

If we were programmed robots then we would not have the capacity for good or evil. We would be nothing but tools of the Programmer.

Also, you may misunderstand the question for debate. I'm not asking about your preferences to be good but your preference for what kind of world you'd like to live in. Even if you were right that we could not be truly good if programmed to be so, I'd still take a happy, secure, and safe world over a world in which a person freely wills to cut my throat!

I understand that question for debate. You misunderstand the free will defense.

If the goal is happiness then free will would seem like a terrible idea. If the goal is goodness then free will is an absolute necessity.

I see no reason why goodness and happiness must be mutually exclusive. I see them compliment each other all the time.

They are not mutually exclusive. However, goodness requires free will while happiness does not.

In summary, it is easy to punch holes into the free-will apologetic.

Perhaps, you simply have not done so yet.