BELIEF IN FATE AIN’T BAD

Free choice is a lie. We do not have this faculty. To destroy belief in it we have to refute the excuses for believing in it.

The first reason for belief in choice is that we feel free.
 
Dogs feel free and happy but they have no free will but are programmed by their instincts and there is no reason to believe that we are any different. I as a denier of free no longer feel that I have got free will.
 
The second reason, that we cannot reward or punish if there is no choice is not a reason, for that would mean that something could be false just because you want it to be false and don’t like the consequences of it being true! Rewards are given principally because we like giving them and secondarily because they encourage people to try and make good achievements in the future. When free will as a reason is so far down in the scale we can drop it. As for punishment, even the believers in choice believe that doing evil is insanity so they cannot justify punishment anyway and the only reason they have it is out of fear and fear is the parent of all human evil. If you believe in free will because you want to punish then it is not punishment you believe in but revenge for you when you need an excuse to punish the result is just revenge. When those who say they believe in free will can pretend to reward and punish we can do the same but we will reward and not punish.
 
We should let go of the past and the wrongs we have done and not let them affect the present moment which is the first moment of the rest of our lives. That is to say we should admit we made a mistake and fill our hearts with good feelings and happiness and move on and make amends in good cheer. Happiness encourages good works not fear and not unhappiness. When people do evil we have to discipline them but we want them to accept it gratefully and rather than suffer learn and grow and be happier so that they are content and don’t feel the need to do evil things in the pursuit of happiness. The point when even criminals should be happy it is a mistake to want to believe in free will to justify punishing which is the only real point of believing in it.

The third reason that unfree will is rejected is that is supposedly makes the word “should” obsolete. It seems that it is mad to tell an unfree being what they should do for they are the pawns of fate. But a computer should print your document when you tell it to so what difference does it make? You would still tell a lunatic what he should do though he has lost free will through his illness. The value in the word should is to tell us what ought to be and it influences our reason and ultimately our actions.

The word should is a dangerous word. It accuses you of being bad if you do the opposite of what you are told you should do. It seeks to pressure you and remove your freedom. It produces fear then. Don’t even tell yourself what you should do. Instead of the word should use the word could because could respects you and acknowledges that you have goodness in you and encourages you. The concept of should itself is as bad as the word so be aware of that as well. Free will is an intrinsically violent idea and only suited to a morality that makes violence a virtue.
 
By the way, the word “should” is what propagating belief in God is all about. They say: “You should believe in God”, “God will be your companion so you should accept him as such” and “You should believe in God for he guides you to do good things and will punish you if you do not.” To reject the word should is to say that nobody is to be told they should worship God which contradicts the concept of God because God has “should” written all over him.

A should suggests that to promote God is to promote what at best is a benevolent dictatorship.  Benevolent or not - it is bad.  The worship of God then will always have a "but".  In that sense, it is play-acting.
 
The word “should” always involves hatred because it says you are bad if you don’t do what you should have done. Some bad deeds that people get up to do not evoke feelings of hatred in us and others do. There is no doubt then that condemning is an act of hatred because it is trying to hate.
 
The fourth reason that unfree will is rejected is that it supposedly discourages the individual from changing for the better. The reasoning goes that if you just do what you are programmed to do then let yourself do whatever you feel like doing. But to let yourself is to act so when you are going to act anyway you are better acting nice. Sensations of fear cause all evildoing and their origin lies in short sightedness so even if you do have free will you will not improve without the knowledge that is the key to conquering fear. So as long as you have the knowledge it matters not if you have free will or unfree will. As for believing in unfree will causing others to do wrong, that is not my concern for what people will do people will do. My concern is my own will and how it functions.

If people are not free they still change for the better so there is nothing to worry about. Free or unfree they will not change unless we encourage them and accept them. Deniers of free will change for the better too so the argument comes from people who are not on this planet at all.

The fifth reason that unfree will is rejected is that if all we do is caused by the past then how do we manage to improve our lives? If all our instincts and actions are caused by the past you would expect each generation to stay at the same level as the previous one for the effect is as good as the cause or would you? The information got by the senses affects your thinking and makes you see new things which is why you are able to change for your thoughts and therefore beliefs change.

The sixth reason that unfree will is rejected is that if we don’t have free will then our beliefs are not beliefs for they did not come from thinking about the evidence but from the programming we got and we cannot be sure the programming was right.

Consciousness is a separate faculty from the will whether the will is free or not and all sense data is fed to the consciousness. Free will has nothing to do with the issue of if what our senses tell us is right. The senses influence the will. You could have free will and still be wrong about everything for your senses might be programmed to lead it astray.

The easy way to refute the alleged need for belief in free will is in how we tell children of four and five what they should do, give them rewards, and trust their learning process and discipline them though they cannot have free will yet. They don’t have sufficiently developed reason to exercise the faculty. This is proof that the doctrine is just a burdensome accessory.

Like the rest of us, insane people think they are sane and that they are using their free will but they are not for they are insane so there can be no possible proof or evidence for free will. We could be programmed to mimic free will and not be free beings. With that thought in mind, even if I do have free will it should be dismissed as an illusion for it gives the weak a reason to violently hate evil people and is more likely to lead to violent hate among those who can avoid hating than the denial of free will would.

We do not need belief in free choice so we should dispense with it because it is better and kinder and therefore more encouraging to flawed people who meet us, to believe that a person who behaves badly is sick and needs love and support rather than to believe he or she is evil and sinful and deserving of condemnation and punishment. Belief in choice then always stems from some degree of hate and snobbery and it encourages the drop in self-esteem that fuels anti-social activity.

Does free will deny human equality? The doctrine says that we create evil out of where there was no evil and nothing made us create it. Person A who is an evildoer is using his personhood to freely create evil and cannot be as valuable as person B who does only good. You can’t say that the person is doing evil but that the person is valuable in themselves any more than you can say that an apple that is rotten is valuable as an apple for such an apple is only fit for being thrown out and has no value. To have value depends on what good you do or are. But if we deny free will we can value all people equally and easily and without hypocrisy for we blame their badness on bad luck.

Morality meaning doing right freely does not exist if free will is a fiction. But right and wrong still exist. As long as we hold fast to the promotion of self-love instead of other-love and God-love more people will do good not because they have to or because they feel bad if they behave badly but because they want to be good. Good is attractive!