PZ Myers of the Pharyngula blog pointed out this story of a 19-year old preacher-to-be microwaving his 2-month old daughter. The mother of the child claims Satan compelled her husband to microwave the child. Looks like this case is too extreme for anyone to take her claim seriously (unless taken as pleading insanity), but still illustrates the issue of avoiding responsibility by appealing to religious concepts.
The claim of being under the influence of Satan or God when committing certain acts is puzzling to me and perhaps readers can help clear this up a bit: as I've come to understand, most Christians believe God gave them free will so they could choose to live out their lives whichever way they saw best. If this were to really work "objectively" from God's point of view, neither God or Satan could interfere by definition with the decisions of men. If Satan had such unrestrained power to make people cause harm to other people, where would that leave free will? Does it have an "on/off" button?
The concept of free will itself is also certainly open for discussion. I don't think we understand the Universe, especially the part between our ears, sufficiently yet to say what's going on with free will, but it seems very likely it will at some point be explained as part of the way the brain represents its actions to itself - at least that's the way it seems to an astrophysics student trying to keep up to date with neuroscience news. Incidentally, Science Magazine recently reviewed "I am a Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter - a new book exploring the nature of consciousness, a phenomenon fundamentally related to free will. It seems a promising read.
The claim of being under the influence of Satan or God when committing certain acts is puzzling to me and perhaps readers can help clear this up a bit: as I've come to understand, most Christians believe God gave them free will so they could choose to live out their lives whichever way they saw best. If this were to really work "objectively" from God's point of view, neither God or Satan could interfere by definition with the decisions of men. If Satan had such unrestrained power to make people cause harm to other people, where would that leave free will? Does it have an "on/off" button?
The concept of free will itself is also certainly open for discussion. I don't think we understand the Universe, especially the part between our ears, sufficiently yet to say what's going on with free will, but it seems very likely it will at some point be explained as part of the way the brain represents its actions to itself - at least that's the way it seems to an astrophysics student trying to keep up to date with neuroscience news. Incidentally, Science Magazine recently reviewed "I am a Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter - a new book exploring the nature of consciousness, a phenomenon fundamentally related to free will. It seems a promising read.
1 comment:
Free will includes choosing to do wrong. If someone would choose not to be threatened by the influence of a higher power, then that's a choice he/she made on their own.
The microwaving the girl story kinda makes me wonder how God or Satan communicate their will to 'normal' humans. Do those people hear voices or see visions? It would be interesting to check out their brains (with MRI).
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