I'm sure you have all noticed this from various comment boards to Reddit and 4chan. "I'm a Christian but (communist bullshit)" or "I was a Republican but (more communist bullshit)". It never turns out well, the atheists will still say youre an idiot as will progressives. Why placate them? Why does nobody stand up for their beliefs? Are we that scared of cancel culture or are we just that scared of possibly offending someone? Who will be the first to say, "This is what I think. Dont like it? Tough titties, now get out of my way".
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This kind of questioning seems cruel, as it's an inherently frustrating topic and most readers are going to be reluctant to answer without some evidence of intent.
In a way, it's strengthening to dive into a bleak committment like "free will is a lie". It destroys motivation, so it takes new strength to pull yourself out of that bog. This type of strength isn't a functional imperative for most people, so I wouldn't expect it of others. Though I'm uncertain if most people are intuiting that sort of struggle when they recoil from the question.
I'll try to answer for fun: no, but I've decided to behave in all ways as if I do because it's useful. Similarly, I believe a god might exist, but that any such god does not desire worship or acknowledgement, so it is a type of sin to do either.
Well, consider:
The entire calvinist/methodist branch of christianity are hard determinists. In any conversation about christianity you have to be expecting free will to come up because by the numbers a significant number of christians do not believe that people have any power to change their trajectory in life.
I'll admit I'm unfamiliar with religious conversation. It's hard enough just finding people conversing about philosophy (I consider religion to be a sort of subcategory of philosophy).
It matches your later explanation that you were trying to make a point about differing worldviews. And it is more straightforward than asking what their religion is.
Where do you even go to find religion talk? I'd be interested to see how the lens of spirituality colors certain perspectives. Even political wrong-thinkers have places to talk, so surely the religious do as well.
Like here, this sounds like it has drastic consequences for a person's views unless you put a big "But" in there. I can't believe all methodists adhere to it, but I doubt most religious people strictly adhere to the religion they use. And I'm realizing now that my sample data is pretty lacking to verify. To me, it's logical to pick and choose and develop your own system of beliefs, so I struggle to understand why a person would strictly follow a giant package of beliefs like a religion.
I browsed that christianity .win for a bit. Does not look hopeful. I'll check on them once in a while, though, as they might mention alternative places.
I saw you mention over there that you're a quaker. Did the religion come before or after you researching determinism?
I haven't read any of his stuff, but my current fixation (Nietzsche) was supposedly inspired by him. The theories on Will sound relevant to me. Might add him to my backlog.
As interesting as it all is to me, I can't act like I'm a serious scholar or anything. A lot of my motivation comes from a love of metaphor in fiction, and a desire to make boring stories more interesting due to how many boring stories I've encountered. So to explain the path I walked to some philosophically-inclined conclusion is likely to sound ridiculous or embarassing.
I remember being really fixated on quantum stuff for a while. All evidence I could understand pointed to determinism, but I was simply disgusted by some of the ideas I saw associated with it, so was forced to invent my own ideological compromise. Reading more books probably would have saved me a lot of effort, but it's fun to reinvent the wheel sometimes.
A few years ago, I made some bad choices that demanded reflection. I ended up updating my prior beliefs to something like "You have opportunities to change paths right up until you hit the crossroad - at that point, you'll only have the illusion of opportunity." This was because no matter how much I thought about how I could have made better choices, I realized I was stuck in that path and just couldn't see it at the time. Yet it was important that I struggled even when it was futile, because to do otherwise is to degrade oneself to the level of a puppet. Though, yeah, that's just one of many factors that predetermines where I'll end up.
This is amusing, thinking back on it, so I'll share. What really struck me along these lines was when I learned to cheat at dice and cards (for fun, I don't cheat for profit). An eye-opening moment for me, to realize that something I always assumed was random could actually be manipulated and controlled with skill and without an observer understanding what they're seeing. It had a lot of far-reaching implications to me at the time.