Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[BigMike]

FlashDangerpants, your "lol" speaks volumes. When faced with substantive arguments that dismantle the core tenets of free will, your response isn’t to engage intellectually but to deflect with a tired cliché about ignoring opponents and awarding medals. It’s almost touching how you attempt to make this about me rather than address the glaring logical failures of free will defenders. But go ahead, focus on the messenger instead of the message—it’s the last refuge of someone who knows they’ve lost the argument.

And Atla, your analogy is as limp as your attempt to ridicule. "In love with determinism"? Determinism isn’t a romantic notion; it’s the foundation of reality. You might as well mock physicists for "being in love with gravity" or biologists for "being in love with DNA." What you fail to grasp is that understanding determinism is not about infatuation—it’s about accepting the undeniable. Your comment is the intellectual equivalent of scoffing at people for acknowledging that the Earth revolves around the sun. It’s not that I’m "in love" with determinism; it’s that you’re hopelessly out of touch with it.

Then why do you talk about it like you were? Determinism is pretty dry, disapponting,
mundane.

Oh dear, Atla, "dry," "disappointing," and "mundane"? That’s quite the assessment for a concept that underpins every law of physics, every process in the universe, and the entirety of human experience. I’m sorry determinism isn’t flashy enough for you—maybe it doesn’t come with enough sparkles or emotional fanfare for your taste. But dismissing it as "mundane" doesn’t make it any less true. Gravity is also mundane when you get right down to it—just a predictable force keeping you from floating into space. Yet I don’t see you yawning at physicists for dedicating their lives to understanding it.

The reason I "talk about it" is simple: determinism isn’t about entertainment; it’s about reality. Sure, reality might not dazzle you like a Netflix drama, but pretending it’s less significant because it doesn’t evoke fireworks in your imagination says more about your priorities than about the concept itself. So go ahead, call it dry if that helps you feel better about dodging the implications. Reality doesn’t need your approval to keep being what it is.

[FlashDangerpants]

FlashDangerpants

Why are you getting pissy about what people on your ignore list write?

I didn't bother reading the post you describe as eloquent and perfect, I don't really rate your writing high enough to look at everything you do.

This site receives quite a lot of narcissists who are able to tell themselves they are geniuses and ignore all nay-sayers. Are you one of those?

Ah, FlashDangerpants, the old "I didn’t read it, but I’ll critique it anyway" routine.

But I didn't critique it you dirty liar. I laughed at you giving yourself medals for it, which is the text that I both read and quoted.

I've done all I needed to do with your arguments, I showed multiple reasons why those from a philosophy background would not be impressed by them. You aren't educated enough to understand me unless you first develop enough humility to learn from others, which looks like something that isn't going to happen. Then you put me on your fabled ignore list making the whole thing moot. Why am I supposed to make a bunch of extra effort to appease you?

You only want to argue with me now because you are getting no engagement because you put everyone on ignore. I have no reason treat you as somebody who is prepared to engage in debate on a good faith basis.

[Atla]

FlashDangerpants, your "lol" speaks volumes. When faced with substantive arguments that dismantle the core tenets of free will, your response isn’t to engage intellectually but to deflect with a tired cliché about ignoring opponents and awarding medals. It’s almost touching how you attempt to make this about me rather than address the glaring logical failures of free will defenders. But go ahead, focus on the messenger instead of the message—it’s the last refuge of someone who knows they’ve lost the argument.

And Atla, your analogy is as limp as your attempt to ridicule. "In love with determinism"? Determinism isn’t a romantic notion; it’s the foundation of reality. You might as well mock physicists for "being in love with gravity" or biologists for "being in love with DNA." What you fail to grasp is that understanding determinism is not about infatuation—it’s about accepting the undeniable. Your comment is the intellectual equivalent of scoffing at people for acknowledging that the Earth revolves around the sun. It’s not that I’m "in love" with determinism; it’s that you’re hopelessly out of touch with it.

Then why do you talk about it like you were? Determinism is pretty dry, disapponting,
mundane.

Oh dear, Atla, "dry," "disappointing," and "mundane"? That’s quite the assessment for a concept that underpins every law of physics, every process in the universe, and the entirety of human experience. I’m sorry determinism isn’t flashy enough for you—maybe it doesn’t come with enough sparkles or emotional fanfare for your taste. But dismissing it as "mundane" doesn’t make it any less true. Gravity is also mundane when you get right down to it—just a predictable force keeping you from floating into space. Yet I don’t see you yawning at physicists for dedicating their lives to understanding it.

The reason I "talk about it" is simple: determinism isn’t about entertainment; it’s about reality. Sure, reality might not dazzle you like a Netflix drama, but pretending it’s less significant because it doesn’t evoke fireworks in your imagination says more about your priorities than about the concept itself. So go ahead, call it dry if that helps you feel better about dodging the implications. Reality doesn’t need your approval to keep being what it is.

Do you have impaired memory? How many more times do I have to state that I'm a determinist myself?

[Impenitent]

until the predetermined number of times is reached?

-Imp

[Alexis Jacobi]

Every particle, object, process and living biological being within a system — as within the Earth’s system — is conditioned by its manifestation within that (and any) system. Understood in this way, no process or object could be considered “free”.

The notion, or the reality, of choice only arises with biological entity. But no choice for any biological being takes place outside of context within such systems, therefore all choices are conditioned and unfree. This is what BigMike is ultimately arguing, if I understand him correctly.

However, and though “free choice” seen in this way is not possible, BM is actually attacking a human being’s capability to make sound and sensible choices within the “context” of conditioned systems, and for reasons I cannot fathom, desires to take away what choice we do have (within conditionality) by confusing it with a hard determinist’s perspective. Yet he actually wavers on this point. He gives man all sorts of “agency” if it is agency that comprehends causality and conditioning, and if policies are instituted that take causality and conditioning into consideration.

The basis of his perspective is said to be in the laws of “physics”, which in his usage is really scientism, but in truth he proposes social and cultural reforms and employs a physics argument to buttress his political and social views. Thus (in my own view) he is an advocate for a kind of “wokism” and, understood negatively, this functions in him like a “mind virus” — an absolutist perspective against which no argument is possible.

His bottom-line issue is really about how man — and philosophy, religion and science — and his responsibility for what he does and does not do should be viewed. Should man be punished or punish himself for what he does in his context (i.e. his conditioned life) or should systems be modified to conform to BM’s sciency, causality-conditioning social philosophy?

By not accepting BM’s social policy he insinuates that one is a “science denier” worthy of ridicule. This is really what his entire argument seems to reduce to.

Alexiev brought up Clockwork Orange as an ironical commentary on a new attitude to social policy. It occurs to me that we might also refer to Kesey’s Big Nurse (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) as an example of what we all fear: people who really object that man’s agency is a problem— the problem. So in the end Big Nurse succeeds in getting McMurphy lobotomized because she could not control the man as man. Kesey was offering elaborate commentary, amazingly executed, about social control systems and those men who show up from time to time as disrupters of those institutionalizations of power.

Big Mike = Big Nurse

[Atla]

However, and though “free choice” seen in this way is not possible, BM is actually attacking a human being’s capability to make sound and sensible choices within the “context” of conditioned systems, and for reasons I cannot fathom, desires to take away what choice we do have (within conditionality) by confusing it with a hard determinist’s perspective. Yet he actually wavers on this point. He gives man all sorts of “agency” if it is agency that comprehends causality and conditioning, and if policies are instituted that take causality and conditioning into consideration.

If we use say 10% of our brain for decision-making, that still involves over 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules, and those molecules are arranged for a very specific emergent behaviour: decision-making.

Visualizing the deterministic behaviour of a few molecules bouncing around or visualizing a river delta analogy, and then using these picture to prescribe how we are allowed to think, is highly inappropriate and there's very little sciency about it imo.

[BigMike]

Alexis, once again you spin an elaborate web of theatrical analogies to avoid grappling with the core of my argument. Comparing me to Big Nurse and invoking lobotomies—it’s colorful, I’ll give you that. But as entertaining as your literary references are, they fail to address the substance of what I’m saying.

You claim I dismiss human agency outright, reducing people to passive puppets of causality. That’s a deliberate oversimplification. I challenge the notion of unconditioned agency, but I absolutely acknowledge that within the deterministic framework, those who grasp its implications can act in ways that reshape their future. In other words, while none of us is "free" in the metaphysical sense, those with the insight to understand causality can consciously plant the seeds for different outcomes.

Here’s the distinction you seem to miss—or perhaps intentionally ignore. I’m not denying that people make choices in the present. I’m saying that these choices are conditioned by their circumstances, their biology, and their history. However, for those intelligent enough to see the deterministic threads that shape their lives, a remarkable opportunity arises: they can deliberately take actions now that alter the trajectory of their future thoughts, decisions, and behaviors. This is not metaphysical free will; it’s simply a deeper understanding of causality and the power of foresight.

Dismissing this as an attack on human agency misses the point entirely. It’s not about stripping away people’s ability to act but about replacing an illusory, magical concept of free will with a pragmatic understanding of how actions now determine outcomes later. Far from oppressive, this view empowers those who embrace it to reshape their lives and their society with greater intentionality.

Your invocation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is particularly absurd in this context. I’m not the Big Nurse trying to lobotomize society; I’m the one showing people how to take control of their future by understanding the forces that shape their present. If anything, it’s your stubborn attachment to metaphysical free will that chains people to outdated, punitive systems that perpetuate suffering.

So yes, I dismiss the fantasy of agency as an uncaused phenomenon. But I elevate those who understand causality, who can act now to create meaningful change in their future. If that’s what you fear, then maybe the Big Nurse analogy isn’t aimed at me after all—it’s a mirror reflecting your own reluctance to let go of comforting delusions.

[Atla]

However, and though “free choice” seen in this way is not possible, BM is actually attacking a human being’s capability to make sound and sensible choices within the “context” of conditioned systems, and for reasons I cannot fathom, desires to take away what choice we do have (within conditionality) by confusing it with a hard determinist’s perspective. Yet he actually wavers on this point. He gives man all sorts of “agency” if it is agency that comprehends causality and conditioning, and if policies are instituted that take causality and conditioning into consideration.

If we use say 10% of our brain for decision-making, that still involves over 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules, and those molecules are arranged for a very specific emergent behaviour: decision-making.

Visualizing the deterministic behaviour of a few molecules bouncing around or visualizing a river delta analogy, and then using these picture to prescribe how we are allowed to think, is highly inappropriate and there's very little sciency about it imo.

It's a bit like telling a computer that can run the newest AAA games that it is only allowed to display 0s and 1s.

[Impenitent]

However, and though “free choice” seen in this way is not possible, BM is actually attacking a human being’s capability to make sound and sensible choices within the “context” of conditioned systems, and for reasons I cannot fathom, desires to take away what choice we do have (within conditionality) by confusing it with a hard determinist’s perspective. Yet he actually wavers on this point. He gives man all sorts of “agency” if it is agency that comprehends causality and conditioning, and if policies are instituted that take causality and conditioning into consideration.

If we use say 10% of our brain for decision-making, that still involves over 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules, and those molecules are arranged for a very specific emergent behaviour: decision-making.

Visualizing the deterministic behaviour of a few molecules bouncing around or visualizing a river delta analogy, and then using these picture to prescribe how we are allowed to think, is highly inappropriate and there's very little sciency about it imo.

It's a bit like telling a computer that can run the newest AAA games that it is only allowed to display 0s and 1s.

what else do you expect from a series of on and off switches? an understanding of the Critique of Pure Reason?

-Imp

[BigMike]

It's a bit like telling a computer that can run the newest AAA games that it is only allowed to display 0s and 1s.

what else do you expect from a series of on and off switches? an understanding of the Critique of Pure Reason?

-Imp

A-huh, Impenitent, a clever quip as always. But tell me—where exactly do you think your "understanding of the Critique of Pure Reason" resides? In some ethereal realm beyond the on-and-off switches, or perhaps nestled right there among the same deterministic processes you’re so quick to reduce? Enlighten us.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Here’s the distinction you seem to miss—or perhaps intentionally ignore. I’m not denying that people make choices in the present. I’m saying that these choices are conditioned by their circumstances, their biology, and their history. However, for those intelligent enough to see the deterministic threads that shape their lives, a remarkable opportunity arises: they can deliberately take actions now that alter the trajectory of their future thoughts, decisions, and behaviors. This is not metaphysical free will; it’s simply a deeper understanding of causality and the power of foresight.

You have in fact wavered on this point and around it. Now, you are saying basically what I said that I understood about our agency and its limits.

There is nothing I ignored — I’ve read you (and others here) carefully. You are confused about the implications of a physics-based world (our “reality”) and about what agency men have and don’t have. You give agency, then you snatch it away.

You have, for your own reasons & purposes, done away with metaphysics simply because the notion of metaphysics and supernaturalism do not — cannot — fit into your paradigm. This is understandable if your perspective is grasped. Personally, I do not think it a wise nor a sound choice, but you are adamant and a zealous enthusiast for your pet perspective (and fail to grasp its own metaphysical grounding).

I’m saying that these choices are conditioned by their circumstances, their biology, and their history

No one that I am aware disagrees with you. And just as you state this — you are employing free unconstrained reason to do so (if you are saying something true) — you have, to a notable degree, stepped outside of the constraints of conditioning and agreed that a “metaphysical” perspective is available and offers you decisive power.

That there is the core of my own perspective. Metaphysical perspective.

However, for those intelligent enough to see the deterministic threads that shape their lives, a remarkable opportunity arises: they can deliberately take actions now that alter the trajectory of their future thoughts, decisions, and behaviors.

This is why I devote my life to The 13-Week Email Course!

I provide you, RIGHT NOW, an opportunity to sign up for only $799.00! Take the chance! (I also am going to throw in my Pick-Up Artist booklet that guarantees you pussy on a Frank Sinatra scale!)

Thanks for taking me off of ignore. Now: free the others and free yourself!

[Alexis Jacobi]

...

First, and as I always clarify, I am here for my own purposes. To think about and get clear about those things I consider relevant. Your purposes are your own. My suggestion? Get more clear about what your real purpose is.

The literary references are not irrelevant by any means. McMurphy and Chief Bromden (Cuckoo's Nest), Alex (Clockwork), Winston (1984), Bernard (Brave New World) all have a great deal of relevance to what is discussed here. Because in these novels the really existence of real men is portrayed. In your world it is all strangely abstracted. You are a huge zealot for a wide array of suppositional positions! But you cannot see yourself very well.

As I have been thinking about it it occurred to me that each figure I mentioned has a definite relationship to the central tropes operative in our culture and thinking -- the way we conceive things and how we think about *positive action* and constructive effort in this world.

We really do not have much of an alternative but to think and see through the lenses of sought-after liberation and the human quest for freedom. In this sense the figure of Jesus Christ, even and perhaps especially for those who hold the image, the symbol, in sheer contempt (most who write here do so), I say that we don't have much choice but to understand each of the literary figures I named as having relationship to that entire issue. (Christ-like figures but largely in an afflicted sense). But it is the notion standing behind the symbol (for those who tend to think in philosophical and symbolic terms) that has great, enduring meaning.

Again, my purposes and intentions are my own. It is, I determined, the only way to keep on in this peculiar environment.

Alexis, once again you spin an elaborate web of theatrical analogies to avoid grappling with the core of my argument.

If you are really going to be honest -- if all of us actually hold honesty to be of genuine value -- then you yourself have a lot of work to do in relation to what you refuse to *grapple with* and what you push out of the picture.

[henry quirk]

A person is not a nervous system.

[henry quirk]

I dismiss human agency outright, reducing people to passive puppets of causality.

Yes, you do...

Here’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Your invocation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is particularly absurd in this context. I’m not the Big Nurse trying to lobotomize society; I’m the one showing people how to take control of their future by understanding the forces that shape their present. If anything, it’s your stubborn attachment to metaphysical free will that chains people to outdated, punitive systems that perpetuate suffering.

You did not, and I suppose you cannot, take what IC carefully presented to you when he dealt on the possible, the likely and the often inevitable result when ideas involving mass social engineering projects have been imposed by *elites*.

Therefore, it seems that you contain yourself within an idealistic bubble -- this is common for zealots of your type. You refuse to examine things when your ideas are put to the test, when their *consequences* are examined both historically and hypothetically.

I’m the one showing people how to take control of their future by understanding the forces that shape their present.

No, in fact you are only making very vague references to some undefined possibility. And you seem to have come here to test out your ideas and, when things don't go your way, you demonstrate a type of intolerance and a will not to listen.