Free Will

If I give you the remote to a TV with 99 channels but that only picks up the reception of 1, and then tell you have the free will to choose any channel, even though the 99 options are real, I do know what you will choose just because I know there is only 1 viewable channel on such TV.
As long as I know what your choice will be, you have to real choice. You will choose exactly what I know you will.

I always felt religion was throwing sand in my eyes when the subject of free will came about to shield gods from guilt and responsibility.

Every time we ask why do gods allow for evil, a weird answer is always given. In those answers, there is always a relative or a too general term to describe the whole deal.
My favorite one, is God giving humans free will.

Let's grasp this concept.
Let us consider God in that moment before creating man.
Then, let us consider mankind as we know it today.

Before Man was created, God knew everything, as He always does.
What this means, is that all future things He was about to create were known to Him.
What it also means, is that the knowledge of all people's actions was also known.
And what it also means, is that he knows exactly what all humans that will ever exist will do every time, in all the moments and choices of their lives.

If He knows all my decisions, then I am only making the decisions He knows I will make. Not the other decisions also presented to me.
If I am living exactly the life God knows I will be living, then I am only choosing to live the life God knows I will live. I will happen exactly the way God wanted and knew all along.

Where do I do whatever I want? So much for free will...
There is no free will if someone else with 100% certainty (such as all knowing gods) can know what my choice will be before I even make it.

Perfect

Defining what perfect is, can be very difficult.
One of the reasons for that difficulty is the fact that some of us may consider something to be perfect, while others may not.

Although I do not think this post will end up with an exact and precise definition of perfection, it is in the interest of this blog to at least present the readers with a definition that matches what we mean when mentioning perfection.

Perfection is a relative attribute: It describes a goal's complete achievement.
It is a good rule of thumb not to use the word perfect by itself.
By itself, the word perfect cannot specify the goal it is referring itself to.

In religion, this separation of the word perfect from its goal is, in my opinion, intentional. By stating something like "God is perfect", the goal is hidden, and we are allowed to fantasize about any kind of perfection, making God's perfection match our own definition of perfection.

The statement "God converts people to His faith perfectly." states its goal clearly.
It is also a false statement being that atheists exist, and are not converts; the goal is definitely not completely achieved.

Religion also complicates the very definition of perfect. Sometimes God's perfection is referred to as infinite as well; Infinite perfection.
If perfection is an absolute quality, making it infinite only contradicts what perfection means. Perfection is something one can achieve, not improve on infinitely. If you believe you can improve perfection, then it wasn't perfect to begin with.
Perfection is like death. It can't be infinite. God's perfection can never be infinite.
Either it is, or it is not.

Testing

When I think about the movies I like and the actors that play them, I can't help to realize how good some are at playing roles that sometimes are so different from what the actors are in real life.

If you lose some of your limitations, you also lose a part of what you were when you had them, to become what you now would be without them. For example, if you were to become immortal, then dying would be something you would lose, and never again be able to do. Immortal people do not die.

The same thing applies to omniscience, that wonderful ability of knowing everything, that all gods seem to share. If you know everything, there will be a few things you just will not do: wonder about something, the need to ask questions, discovery, learning... etc.
Once you know all, you stop needing those things. And in some cases, just like being immortal, some things you won't be able to do anymore: ignorance is one of those lost things.

We, regular humans, observe the world, pass knowledge from person to person, inquire, experiment, and test things, in order to understand and know the world around us.
Of all these things, all knowing beings need none of them, and can't do a few: like learning. Gods can't learn, because they know all already.

As such, the next time someone tells you that your god is testing your faith, or wants to find out something about us, remember that those are just some of the things he can't do.
He can't find out something he already knows (knows all), or test us to see what we do, because he knows that as well.

Like my favorite actors, some roles just aren't for God. Being curious is one of them.

Responsibility and Blame - Part I

Religious people have a double standard when it comes to figuring out what their god(s) is responsible for.
When we are about to be held responsible for something, two things come into play:

• Knowledge of whatever we're being held accountable for;
• Power to affect whatever we're being held accountable for.

Let's imagine a parent and a toddler in a room.
The parent holds the child while considering putting him/her down to wander the room.
Before that happens, the parent spots broken glass all over the floor (or sparking wires, or whatever your favorite type of problem may be).

In this example, the possibilities would be:

• Protect the child by avoiding the glass (by cleaning it, or deciding that both should leave the room).
• Let the child walk and learn the room and hope for the best.

Let us assume that the parent goes with the second option, and lets the child walk around the room.
All will go well until the child gets hurt with the glass.

Who's responsible for this?

The answer is pretty obvious: The parent.
My claim is, knowledge and power affect guilt. Had the glass been hidden from the parent's view, but in reach of the child anyway, we would call it an accident (knowledge). Had the child been near an exploding window, the parent would have no power to avoid glass and it too would be deemed an accident (power).

An all knowing god, has the knowledge of all "glass". Even before "glass" is created. An all knowing god will know where the glass will be, and who will get hurt with it before it happens. Also, it will have all the power in the universe to change and/or solve any glass problem.

So when I look at this beautiful world but also full of glass, and hear religious people saying we're all god's children, who is to blame when some of us step on the glass that this parent (god) not only knew about, but created, and decided to put us and it in the same room for us to step on (power and knowledge)?

Omnipotent - Part IV - Motivation

The problems of Omnipotence - Part IV

Motivation can be all sorts of reasons, feelings, cravings, fears, desires, that all put together create this need that moves us towards achieving something.
Just like that thirst we have while we search for a drink and then disappears once we're done drinking. Or that sleepiness that goes away once we get tired of being in bed sleeping... Motivations go away once what they crave gets realized.

We live our lives in search of meaning, satisfaction, purpose and all other goals that the universe did not provide us with at birth. We compete with each other, at school, at work, for a better life. We live.
All that we do, is motivated by what we are not. The word "not" is the important word here. Our lack of power to be what we are not (richer, healthier, happier, whatever...) is what drives all of us.
What choices and options will a omnipotent god have?

No matter what you can think of as being one of god's needs, no one must ever forget that in god's all power, the power to instantly satisfy those needs exists, and no reason exists for that power not to be realized.

Take your lack of power, now turn yourself into an all powerful, omnipotent being, and what would you get for motivation? Think about it. What does an all powerful being need to crave for, that it does not already have? What is it waiting for? And why wait and waste time to begin with when you do not need to?
All these questions search for reasons, for answers. Oh wait, omnipotent beings do not have choices to go through, nor their reasons...

So if you were an all powerful being existing alone before anything else existed, knowing all outcomes of all your actions, with a needless perfect satisfied state of mind, and no reason to do anything, why create the universe? Totally pointless.

Once done with the power to do anything, there will be one thing always left to do: nothing.

Omnipotent - Part III - Choices

The problems of Omnipotence - Part III
We've seen here, how omnipotence can be a tricky concept.

When we walk a path and that path splits, a choice is presented to us. Do I turn left, or right? We do not have the power to go to both paths at the same time. You can walk both paths simultaneously only if your power is limitless, only if your are omnipotent.

If we can do everything, the power to perpetually enjoy a certain state of mind, to enjoy all my favorite states of mind, or even to create an infinite number of states of mind and enjoy them all at the same time, is possible. Being at perfect bliss is not an aspiration of an all powerful being, it is just something such beings always have, because there is nothing stopping them from having it - they are all powerful.
Again, nothing you can think of has "no" for an answer.

Given this, the word "choice" will lose meaning. When regular beings choose something, there is always a motive or a reason for choosing A instead of B. And even when the choice is random, there is usually a reason for that too: indifference, no time or patience to choose, etc...

Omnipotent beings will be presented with a dilemma: their choices never have a reason behind it, because they have absolute power. Why? They can change the choices they are about to have, change themselves not to need the choice, make themselves able to choose both, whatever... There is never a "no" to "can a Omnipotent being do this or that?".

If you can do everything, you don't choose anything. Choices are options that only limited beings need to go through. Example: "Should I stay single, or get married?". An all powerful being knows the lives of all married people and of all single people, from the past and the future (omniscience). Such being can know the pros/cons of all people of both groups and enjoy both at the same time. Better yet, without the cons.

So next time you hear someone say God did something this way instead of that way, and they give you an explanation as to why that choice was the way it was, remember how Omnipotent beings don't deal with choices. Choosing is a thing for us power limited mortals. And as for the reason or explanation given: Omnipotent beings are not limited by anything, so there are never reasons to go one way instead of another.

So what would motivate an all powerful being to do anything?

Omnipotent - Part II - Pleasure

The problems of Omnipotence - Part II

Think about some of the few great pleasures you are able to enjoy in life. Pick your favorites.
Not that perfect afternoon at the golf course, nor that perfect walk by the beach, nor that perfect night partying with friends. Try to breakdown those complex feelings into all those smaller ones that make those mentioned above.

Think instead of simpler, more intimate forms of pleasure:

• sleeping
• laughter
• sex
• eating while hungry
• drinking while thirsty
• breathing fresh air
• stretching in the morning

etc...

You can usually find some of these simple pleasures in the complex things we love to do everyday. However, there is a point in our day, our week or our month when we feel like we are missing some of the pleasures we have experienced before. From the simplest ones to the more complex ones. Lacking some of the more important pleasures in our lives will make us pursue them more intensely. The hungrier we get, the harder we will try to eat, the thirstier we get, the harder we will try to get something to drink, and so on...

I wish I had unlimited financial resources to pursue my sources of pleasure.
To own that perfect house, that perfect car, to climb a mountain, to go into space, to have my own jet, my own yacht, to take my friends on a cruise, then on a submarine, to afford it all several times... All that to get my intimate pleasure(s) and share it with whomever.

What if I had health problems that money could not solve? Money will not provide me with all forms of pleasure I may think of. There is more than just the power of money.

What if my power was limitless?

• Would I eat my favorite steak all the time?
• Or would I eat just that first perfect bite when I am the hungriest and freeze that feeling in my head forever?
• Would I get tired of that feeling being always there?
• Or would I remove boredom from my head forever and enjoy it forever?
• Would I then drink my favorite drink after that bite of steak?
• Or would I freeze that drinking feeling, that first sip when we are the thirstiest, along with the steak bite forever?
• Would I then add my favorite music to the whole thing?
• Or would I add that musical bliss to my brain forever along with the sip and bite...?
• What would keep me from making this list of things grow forever in my head?

Steak, Drink, Music, Company, Games, Winning, Pleasing, Being Pleased, Ice cream, Sports, Excitement, a Massage, a Swim, Sky Diving, World Peace, everything!

Let us assume that I added and absorbed all pleasures in life just because my power is limitless. Just because I can.
If you had the power to do anything and everything, what pleasure would you not add, and why?

[Definition] Omnibenevolent

Omnibenevolence: unlimited or infinite benevolence.
(Benevolence: the quality of being kind and altruistic.)

If one is the universe's creator, and one is the God of any major religion, they are omniscient in that creation. God would know exactly what such creation is going to turn out to be, whatever the circumstances, whenever the circumstances. Given that perfect knowledge, the universe will still be created, and everything that will ever exist is going to be exactly the way the creator knew it would be. Such creator is omniscient.

Once God created the universe, everything in it is included in God's plan. I do not know if there was a plan to begin with, but knowing that God knows all, then everything will go according to that infinite knowledge, on in other words, according to the plan. Everything will be the way God knows and wants it to be, always.

Gods in major religions are seen as forgiving, merciful, compassionate, and kind in a infinite way. However, they chose to create evil, knew all, so they knew the consequences of that evil, and created beings that are evil, which is still included in God's initial plan., because all is included. If God knew all before creation and still created all this way, then that was the plan.
So why forgive what or who is happening according to plan (evil or not, that was the plan)?
Why punish whoever is happening according to plan? Is there anything or any one thing that has not or will not go according to God's plan messing up God's omniscience?

God's cannot be just, or merciful, or kind, or evil. All in the universe is just the way it is supposed to be from the start, because all omniscient beings knew it would be this way, and that is how they created everything.
Therefore, omnibenevolence is not a quality any omniscient god can have. At least not the ones that created hell and eternal punishments along with the universe (If they claim that quality, they're faking it!). Eternal punishments after death seems like a sentence given to someone that had messed up the plan of the universe's supreme being. Can that be possible?

[Definition] Tradition

Tradition: an inherited pattern of thought or action.

In religious debates, a position that supports a religious based action or tradition, against a secular action, can turn into a conflict where only one side can win. Although it's not always about winning and losing, and compromising is most of the times possible, tradition is sometimes a concept that people believe to be of importance.

For some, a tradition holds an importance higher than an unknown or simply recent non-traditional behavior.

For example: tattoos.
In a lot of work places in our society, tattoos are not seen as tradition, and so people applying for sensitive positions are often discriminated based on having visible tattoos. Bank tellers, Presidents, most managerial positions, are usually some of the positions where the issue is most prevailing. It is as if all bad people in the world could be identified by having tattoos.
Most people allow themselves to have double standards. Sometimes without even noticing. For thousands of years, man has marked his body with paintings, carved it with scars, and all that became tradition in some cultures. Tattooing is tradition. But if you're applying for that very nice job, the standard changes and your tattoo is now bad.

Religion is also tradition.
So was burning people at the stake that were thought to be witches, or heretics, persecuting and forcefully converting people based on their religion (crusades, inquisition), hanging criminals in public places in the old west, and other barbaric acts once done and accepted by the population as traditional: that inherited pattern of thought or action, passed from generation to generation (for whatever reason).

Don't let this become tradition!

When something is just tradition, it is just that: something that has been done a lot. Nothing more, nothing less. Lots of bad things have been done in a traditional way, and so have good things. When a tradition is challenged, all we should do is think about it as if it had been created today.

Next time someone defends something based on tradition alone, or in other words, because it has always been so, demand a better answer. Doing wrong over and over does not make it right. Tradition can be changed, and when a bad one, changing it recycles our minds, our ethics, our values and ourselves. And when times and people change, so should their traditions.