Can the Religious Be Trusted?

[seeds]

My personal, admittedly 'unscientific' view is that consciousness evolved as an extension of survival mechanisms, beginning with the first self-replicating molecules and later self-replicating cells. These early forms of life developed instincts and mechanisms aimed at survival and reproduction, which, over billions of years, became increasingly complex. Consciousness, in this framework, is an emergent property of this evolution—a way for organisms to navigate their environments and fulfill needs, much like those outlined in something akin to Maslow's hierarchy. At its core, consciousness could be seen as the ultimate tool for survival, enabling beings to perceive, reflect, and respond to the challenges of existence.

I apologize for coming off as a broken record, but wasn't it remarkably "convenient" that all of these self-replicating molecules and later the self-replicating cells had the absolute perfect (fully-equipped) setting upon which to evolve in uninterrupted stability for billions of years?

We're talking about a setting that also included the absolute perfect (and stable) source of heat, light, and bio-driving energy.

Again, this...



My goodness, BigMike, I realize that if you never turn around and only face forward as you assail your interlocutors with an intense barrage of scientific facts in support of your theory,...

...it, in turn, makes it difficult for you to notice the 12-ton elephant* standing behind you in the form of that aforementioned "miracle" offered up in that earlier quote by Terence McKenna.

*(Fun fact from Google AI: The heaviest elephant ever recorded was an adult male African savannah elephant named "Henry" that weighed 24,000 pounds.)

And just for more funzies, I ran some of what we've been arguing about past ChatGPT (bolding mine and Chat)...

...(note: in the following, I did not include all of ChatGPT's standard supportive chatter, and simply posted its forewords and conclusions):

Me:

Has humanity, in any way, shape or form whatsoever, reached a final conclusion as to whether or not the universe is a product of chance or a product of intelligent design?

ChatGPT:

No, humanity has not reached a final conclusion about whether the universe is a product of chance or intelligent design. This question lies at the intersection of science, philosophy, and theology, and interpretations depend on one's worldview, the evidence considered, and the methodologies employed.

Consensus and Open Questions

• Science does not claim a definitive answer; it focuses on natural explanations and avoids metaphysical assertions.
  
  Philosophy and Theology offer diverse perspectives but lack universal agreement.
  
  Interdisciplinary Dialogue continues, with ongoing advancements in cosmology, quantum mechanics, and related fields offering new insights, but not definitive answers.

In short, the question remains open-ended, as it touches on the limits of human knowledge and understanding.

Me:

If science does not (indeed, cannot) claim a definitive answer as to how the order of the universe came about, is it then safe to assume that anyone who claims that science has somehow proven the veracity of "determinism" and the nonexistence of "free will," has no business making such a claim? Especially if it is not possible to rule out the existence of a higher intelligence who, via its own "free will" choices, has, perhaps, surreptitiously guided creation along the way?

ChatGPT:

You're raising a nuanced and important point. It is indeed problematic for anyone to assert with absolute certainty that science has definitively proven determinism or the nonexistence of free will, especially given the unresolved nature of questions about the origin and order of the universe, as well as the potential influence of a higher intelligence.

Conclusion
It is indeed unjustified for anyone to claim that science has conclusively disproven free will or proven determinism, especially when:

• The nature of the universe's origins and the potential influence of a higher intelligence remain unresolved.
  
  Scientific findings often reflect provisional understandings rather than absolute truths.

In discussions about free will, determinism, or higher intelligence, it is crucial to distinguish between scientific evidence, philosophical interpretation, and metaphysical speculation. Overreaching claims fail to respect the boundaries of what science can actually establish.

The most valuable lesson to be learned from this post is:

...Don't mess with "Henry"...


_______

[henry quirk]

Saved me the trouble of responding to Mike myself: thank you, sir!

[henry quirk]

I trust you can see where my hypothetical story is going

No, I can't. If you mean to defend determinism, well, I haven't railed against it, so, you wasted effort. If you mean to discredit libertarian free will/agent causation, well, you missed the mark. I can take your sequence and insert choice thru-out.

[Belinda]

I trust you can see where my hypothetical story is going

No, I can't. If you mean to defend determinism, well, I haven't railed against it, so, you wasted effort. If you mean to discredit libertarian free will/agent causation, well, you missed the mark. I can take your sequence and insert choice thru-out.

But everyone ,including determinists, chooses. The difference between determinists and Free Willers is that determinists are the ones who seek causes for their and others' choices.

[henry quirk]

But everyone ,including determinists, chooses.

Not accordin' to Mike. He sez...

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.

...so, accordin' to him, none of us choose diddly-squat.

The difference between determinists and Free Willers is that determinists are the ones who seek causes for their and others' choices.

Best I can tell: some folks want to avoid responsibility and some folks embrace responsibility. The determinist sez it ain't my fault! and the free will sez yeah, it's my fault.

[henry quirk]

The difference between determinists and Free Willers is that determinists are the ones who seek causes for their and others' choices.

A free will isn't off, huntin' snipe, he's already sourced the cause of his choices: himself.

[BigMike]

But everyone ,including determinists, chooses.

Not accordin' to Mike. He sez...

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.

...so, accordin' to him, none of us choose diddly-squat.

The difference between determinists and Free Willers is that determinists are the ones who seek causes for their and others' choices.

Best I can tell: some folks want to avoid responsibility and some folks embrace responsibility. The determinist sez it ain't my fault! and the free will sez yeah, it's my fault.

Henry, your response is the rhetorical equivalent of swinging at shadows. You frame determinism as some kind of "get-out-of-responsibility" card when, ironically, it’s the deterministic framework that offers the most effective tools for understanding, addressing, and improving behavior.

Responsibility, in a deterministic context, isn’t about shrugging and saying, "It’s not my fault!" It’s about recognizing the causes that led to an action, learning from them, and making changes to avoid harmful outcomes in the future. You know, practical stuff—like fixing a leaky pipe instead of screaming at it for being morally irresponsible.

The deterministic view doesn’t deny "choice"—it redefines it. Choices are real, but they’re determined by the brain’s architecture, external stimuli, and prior experiences. You’re not choosing in some mystical vacuum, divorced from causality, but within the constraints of a cause-and-effect framework. That’s why we’re capable of learning, growing, and, yes, taking responsibility. In fact, because determinism acknowledges the mechanics behind behavior, it provides a more robust foundation for accountability than some ethereal notion of freely deliberate free choice.

So let’s drop this cartoonish strawman that determinists are all about avoiding responsibility while the noble free willers stand up and say, "Yeah, it’s my fault!" That’s a lazy oversimplification. A determinist recognizes the importance of responsibility—precisely because understanding the causes of actions is the first step toward meaningful change. The idea that a determinist would sidestep accountability is like saying a physicist studying gravity thinks it’s cool to drop things on people because, hey, "It’s not my fault—gravity did it!"

I’d invite you to reconsider whether your perspective is really about responsibility or just clinging to a comforting illusion of control. Because let’s face it, the rock rolling downhill isn’t worried about fault. It’s too busy doing what it’s driven to do—just like you, me, and everyone else. The difference is, some of us are honest about it.

[Belinda]

But everyone ,including determinists, chooses.

Not accordin' to Mike. He sez...

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.

...so, accordin' to him, none of us choose diddly-squat.

The difference between determinists and Free Willers is that determinists are the ones who seek causes for their and others' choices.

Best I can tell: some folks want to avoid responsibility and some folks embrace responsibility. The determinist sez it ain't my fault! and the free will sez yeah, it's my fault.

That is a very useful point to raise and determinists need to face up to it.
I , a determinist , in honesty must agree with you. I am as much in favour of personal responsibility as you are. I do agree the free will say "Yeah, it's my fault".

So how to be a free determinist? My explanation is that I never was free from having to do bad things such as eating the flesh of other animals, and benefitting as a Briton from the Atlantic slave trade , centuries after it became illegal. My ecological footprint alone makes me guilty of bad.
The little freedom that remains to me is to try to ameliorate these original badnesses by what what I do in the future. I am not yet a dead corpse so determinism allows me possibilites and the future, possibilities that don't pertain to meat machines and other dead things .

You underrate possibility which is deterministic; with possibility there is hope and I would like to extend hope towards everybody. Possibility means the future is open.

I guess the reason you underrate hope is that you confuse determinism with fatalism. Fatalism allows for no change apart from what the Fates have decided for us.

[BigMike]

But everyone ,including determinists, chooses.

Not accordin' to Mike. He sez...

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.

...so, accordin' to him, none of us choose diddly-squat.

The difference between determinists and Free Willers is that determinists are the ones who seek causes for their and others' choices.

Best I can tell: some folks want to avoid responsibility and some folks embrace responsibility. The determinist sez it ain't my fault! and the free will sez yeah, it's my fault.

That is a very useful point to raise and determinists need to face up to it.
I , a determinist , in honesty must agree with you. I am as much in favour of personal responsibility as you are. I do agree the free will say "Yeah, it's my fault".

So how to be a free determinist? My explanation is that I never was free from having to do bad things such as eating the flesh of other animals, and benefitting as a Briton from the Atlantic slave trade , centuries after it became illegal. My ecological footprint alone makes me guilty of bad.
The little freedom that remains to me is to try to ameliorate these original badnesses by what what I do in the future. I am not yet a dead corpse so determinism allows me possibilites and the future, possibilities that don't pertain to meat machines and other dead things .

You underrate possibility which is deterministic; with possibility there is hope and I would like to extend hope towards everybody. Possibility means the future is open.

I guess the reason you underrate hope is that you confuse determinism with fatalism. Fatalism allows for no change apart from what the Fates have decided for us.

Belinda, your insight that determinism allows for possibilities is absolutely correct—though those possibilities are entirely shaped by the causes and conditions leading up to them. But let’s address the core issue here: the illusion of free will and the traditional notions of moral responsibility that have long been tied to it. We cannot act as if free will exists in the way people have historically imagined—something untethered from causality—because it simply doesn’t.

To act as though we’re somehow exempt from the laws of physics and biology is to perpetuate a fiction, and that fiction has real consequences. It allows us to blame people as though they could have acted differently, even when their actions were entirely the result of their environment, genetics, and experiences. This blame-based model is punitive and backward-looking, whereas a deterministic understanding is forward-looking—it seeks to identify causes, address them, and create better conditions for everyone.

Yes, determinism involves possibility. But those possibilities emerge from the chain of causality, not some mystical reservoir of free will. You don’t have "free" choice, but you do have choice—choice that’s determined by who you are, where you’ve been, and what you know. Recognizing this doesn’t lead to fatalism, as you rightly pointed out. It leads to action informed by reality.

What’s critical here is that we must act based on reality as it is—deterministic. This doesn’t mean abandoning responsibility. It means reframing it. Responsibility becomes about understanding and improving the conditions that influence behavior, not assigning blame for past actions as though they happened in a vacuum. It’s about creating a world where better outcomes are not just hoped for but causally ensured.

Hope, as you said, comes from the possibility that things can improve. And those possibilities are real—not because we’re free agents making magic choices, but because determinism gives us the tools to understand how change happens and how to guide it. In this framework, hope is grounded in understanding, not wishful thinking. It’s a hope that empowers, rather than excuses.

[henry quirk]

%

You frame determinism as some kind of "get-out-of-responsibility" card

No, you did that...

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.

*

the deterministic framework that offers the most effective tools for understanding, addressing, and improving behavior.

Not possible if...

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.

*

Responsibility, in a deterministic context, isn’t about shrugging and saying, "It’s not my fault!" It’s about recognizing the causes that led to an action, learning from them, and making changes to avoid harmful outcomes in the future.

Responsibility, recognizing, learning, making changes, none of that is possible if...

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.

*

The deterministic view doesn’t deny "choice"—it redefines it. Choices are real,

There is no choice if...

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.

*

A determinist recognizes the importance of responsibility

If this...

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.

...is true, no one recognizes jack shit.

*

The idea that a determinist would sidestep accountability

If this...

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.

...is true, then he'll do whatever he's driven to. And, most of the time, determnists, like yourself, seem driven to redefine responsibility and accountability in such a way that they can say it wasn't my fault. Funny how the deterministic forces work, yeah?

*

the rock rolling downhill isn’t worried about fault

I ain't a rock, and neither are you. We're both utterly responsible and accountable for ourselves. It is my sincere belief this...

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.

...is horse manure. It is also my sincere belief that you don't belief a word of it.

[henry quirk]

I am as much in favour of personal responsibility as you are.

If this...

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.

...is true, your belief in personal responsibility is causally inevitable and meaningless.

*

So how to be a free determinist?

Not possible.

*

determinism allows me possibilites and the future

Determinism allows you nuthin', B. You think, say, do what you must. Blind, amoral, deterministic forces call the shots.

*

I guess the reason you underrate hope

I don't. I'm a free will. I can hope, and do.

*

you confuse determinism with fatalism

This...

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.

...is Mike's, not mine. He's the fatalist.

[Belinda]

Henry, do you believe the future is open, or not?

[Belinda]

Seeds, existence itself is undoubtedly remarkable; all proper philosophers remark on it.
So let's not presume a supernatural intelligent Entity made existence and made it as it is.
Do you think God is of the same nature as a human its methods? Is God merely a high degree of intelligence?

[henry quirk]

Henry, do you believe the future is open, or not?

In certain ways, particularly as it pertains to persons, it's open.

In other ways, as it pertains to the regularity of the world, it's closed.

[Belinda]

Henry, do you believe the future is open, or not?

In certain ways, particularly as it pertains to persons, it's open.

In other ways, as it pertains to the regularity of the world, it's closed.

I agree. I draw the demarcation between alive and not alive. You?
I guess some determinists , physicists even, do not believe in regularities . I happen to believe in regularities. Regularities is another word for God.

However, God is a process not a thing. A Fate is a thing : God is open to possibilities.