Life is random. The corrupt and powerful prosper. The weak and innocent suffer. If the Bible did not exist, I would believe the universe to be controlled by a large number of gods and goddesses in constant conflict, with men as pawns in their larger game.
Why would such powerful beings need men? Tiny insignificant humans to play out their control game? Seems a bit silly.
Why do you have such a hard time believing in Free Will? Is it because you don't want to take responsibility for your actions and would rather shuffle it over to an unaccountable supernatural being?
I believe in free will. In fact, my religion is based on the notion of free will. Your statement doesn't even make sense.
Why not just believe in nature? Nature is a cruel and psychotic mistress. As an atheist, I value most in humans that which does not reflect nature as a whole. Nature is chaos, rewards ruthlessness and violence. No gods necessary. Of course Nature is to be respected-- we live within its grasp and its rules. But its example is not a good one. To this end, I think the polytheists were closer to understanding Nature than monotheists who imagine Nature a construct of good and order. But still, I see no reason for a god or gods for this. If anything I see the monotheistic God as a metaphor for humanity, capable of building order in chaos, capable of loving in an arena that rewards aggression. But where the metaphor fails is that humanity is not infallible. The monotheistic God attempts to give the order of humanity the omnipotence of Nature... This is just not true by making the good of humanity an external force... This simply does not reflect reality. Personally I think free will is mostly false. Strangely, however, beliefs have consequences, so the belief in free will has positive and negative consequences. I think the optimal belief is in conditional free will. Under circumstances when we are not denied necessary resources or the basics of life and liberty, we have what amounts to free will. Under other circumstances we revert to the control of Nature. In reality, we may always be under the control of Nature, but more freedom (by a liberal definition, not the conservative one which imposees further hardship) gives us more choices and thereby gives us license to choose the optimal choice rather than the back-up choice or the only choice available.
isn't that odd then. I guess those big brained philosophers were correct. Man will invent his own gods. And man always makes them powerful and mean.
